Maui College Chorus: Earth Songs

First I met the conductor, Celia Canty. Then I saw the college choir perform. Next I wrote reviews.

Now I accompany the singers, arrange for them to perform, and blog about their upcoming performances.

Maui College Chorus, April 2012. Photo: Lloyd Canty

I asked Celia about her choice of songs for the Spring 2012 concert. “They all have to do with the earth,” she replied in a recent interview. “The songs are from all over the world, and the choir sings them in original language. But ‘earth’ also has another meaning, too — as in planting trees, jasmine flower, etc.”

In the beginning, the choir was a collection of  individuals with separate voices and universes. After weeks of rehearsing, they blend into one single sound. It requires hearing oneself and hearing others. Celia Canty, who has perfect pitch, can hear if someone sings out of tune. She says it’s both a blessing and a curse to have this ability to hear absolute pitch, as it’s sometimes called.

When we arranged to have the college cable TV crew film the singers, it was intended as a concert performance with no audience. I would have preferred a video of a rehearsal, for that’s far more interesting than a concert. At a rehearsal, one gets to learn. One gets to see how the raw material becomes refined into something beautiful. See the video below of a rehearsal of the popular Chinese folk song — Jasmine Flower, which Puccini used in the opera Turandot and which I once arranged for harp (PDF) because I loved it so much and wanted to play it.

Watch short video clip: Celia Canty rehearses Maui College Chorus on harp

Maui College Chorus, Spring 2012. Photo: Lloyd Canty

Performances (all free):

• 13 April 2012 @2:45 pm Preview for Academic Senate Meeting, UHMC
• 19 April 2012 @3:45 pm Roselani Place, Kahului
• 27 April 2012 @7 pm Iao Congregational Church, Wailuku
• 3 May 2012 @4 pm Kalama Heights, Kihei

Maui College Chorus Concert Program, Spring 2012

Rehearsals and work-in-progress as previews (trailers)

Watching a rehearsal of a choir or the behind-the-scenes of a film production makes me want to go see the real thing (when it’s ready). Like watching a chef prepare a meal, I start to get hungry.

Not the concert itself, Utrecht Conservatory June 2008. Photo: F. vd Meer

Twitter led me to watch the work-in-progress of The Hobbit which will come out next here. The youtube video is not short by any means, but you grow to love the people working on the set and film.

On Facebook, I played a video of the rehearsal of the 88-member student choir of the New England Conservatory. So much goes on in a rehearsal that is not obvious. For the bystander like myself, I see beauty that is being created. I am reminded of my days as a conservatory student, singing in two choirs per year to improve my solfege. For others, it’s the awe of the director — how he manages to get the choir to produce an impressive sound.

The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam offers free lunch concerts each Wednesday. I remember queuing 45 minutes before one such event, shoulder to shoulder in the reception area, standing like sardines in anticipation of a 45 minute concert. When the doors finally opened about 10 minutes before the concert, we rushed in and exclaimed a unison “wow!”  It was the stendhalismo effect of arriving at a historically important place, feeling the special feng shui and grandiose atmosphere, and all of that we normally don’t get to experience in daily life. Once we sat down, I realized that it was just a rehearsal. Not even a dress rehearsal. But it was the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. They were rehearsing a Brahms violin concerto. All musicians were informally dressed, despite being on stage and in front of a full-house of eager listeners. We fell silent when the conductor raised his stick. I closed my eyes. This could easily be the concert itself. The conductor brought the violinist into his solo. After leading the orchestra to join him in a mesmerizing passage, he stopped at a beautiful chord. I opened my eyes to another unison sigh from the audience — an “Ah!”

The free lunch rehearsal concert ended 15 minutes earlier than I had expected. Yet we all felt satisfied — as though we’ve had our lunch.

That was a live trailer of the concert that evening.

All in all, I’d say that rehearsals, work in progress, behind the scenes and pre-production all lead us to anticipate. When we anticipate, we expect. It makes us look forward to the real thing.

Pure acoustics unamplified

One of the reasons why I so enjoyed the choral concert I attended two days ago was that it was not amplified. Even the conductors abandoned the microphones to speak directly to the audience. Now you might exclaim, what’s the big deal? Of course it should not be amplified.

Neither were the Hawaiian Youth Symphony (HYS) concert and the Maui Pops Orchestra & San Francisco Pocket Opera production of “The Elixir of Love” amplified at the Castle Theatre in Maui. Except for the soloists in the HYS (which I did not think needed it), nothing was amplified. But the sound engineer could not wait to flip on background (amplified) music before and between the performances. I preferred to hear the sound of the audience rather than recorded music to fill the void.

The unamplified sound of a rehearsal of Handel’s Water Music in the big concert hall of the Utrecht Conservatory in the Netherlands was infinitely better than the live performance outdoors on the canal the next day. Why? Because the latter was amplified. [For more, visit the 10th paragraph in this blog post.]

Something I notice in Maui and elsewhere in the USA, there is constant background music filling the air space in hotel lobbies, shopping malls, department stores, restaurants and other places. Even when there is no music, an eternal fountain of noise is stifling the silence.

I daresay from years of working with classical musicians that they prefer to have pure silence when they are not making music. The ears need a rest. The ears need recharging.

I get annoyed when told by the guitarist to close the lid on the piano because it’s too loud. Equally, he gets annoyed when he has to use amplification to bring out the sound of the guitar. We as a piano guitar duo prefer not to use any amplification. We adapt to the acoustics, just as any classical music performer would, not with amplification or filter.

No, I don’t have a portable electric keyboard. No, Robert Bekkers does not have an amplifier for his acoustic guitar. We produce music the way we hear it for you to hear it —- pure and unamplified. Of course, it won’t sound the same outdoors. The instruments have to be amplified outdoors as we experienced it in Cape Town and Provence.

Below, amplified background music of slide guitar as audiences leave the Castle Theatre for the Yokouchi Pavillion in the Maui Arts and Cultural Centre.

From entertainment to art: review of Maui Choral Arts

Last December I reviewed the Christmas concert of the Maui Choral Arts Association (MCAA) in Kihei. It was an entertaining performance, launching the holiday season for me and my partner who had just arrived in Maui the previous month for a long sabbatical.

Last Saturday 19th March 2011, on the eve of the biggest full moon in 24 years, we attended the spring concert of MCAA “Sing On, Sing On!”  The location was the same — Kihei Baptist Chapel. The choir members were largely the same — same size, same make-up. Yet the Lei of Stars Maui Choral Festival Concert was entirely different from the December concert.

How best to put it? My partner said, “There is a thin line between entertainment and art. They have crossed it.”

There was no question of the entertainment value of this well-attended concert. The programme was varied enough to please anyone. From the opening blessing and chant of deep voiced Jimmy Aarona to the familiar “If Music Be the Food of Love” that was also sung at the December concert, we heard famous choral works of Verdi’s Nabucco and La Traviata as well as Haydn’s The Creation. The harp was awakened with two solo harp interludes by artistic and executive director Celia Canty, who is the founder and resident conductor of the Festival Chorus and Paradise Singers. Several soloists stepped out of the choir to sing Verdi and Haydn.

Maui Choral Arts Spring Concert 2011 in Kihei, Maui

From the flowing Hawaiian song “No Ka Beauty O Honokohau” with a young hula dancer Makena Pang on stage to the exciting and syncopated Israeli folksong “Zum Gali,” the singers sang with unmistakenable passion and love. It was sheer joy to see, hear, and feel their enthusiasm.

We as the audience were not mere onlookers. The conductors spoke to us and involved us. In recognition of the devastating earthquake and tsunami in Japan, Canty invited us to sing the first piece “E Ho’omaluhia” or Dona Nobis Pacem. We were also invited to sing the last piece “Aloha ‘Oe.”

The singers sang to us. Audience engagement led to a very appreciative audience, particularly of the conductors’ acknowledgment of the accompanist Angie Carr behind the Baldwin grand piano and the individual soloists.

If an interesting and diverse programme coupled with audience engagement is essential to entertainment, then what is art?

Guest conductor Dr Donald Neuen from UCLA worked with the choir for several consecutive days before the concert. Although we were not present for the intensive rehearsals, we imagine them to be somewhat like those from the movie “As It is in Heaven” in which a conductor changes the choir, the way they perceive themselves, the way the view the music, and the result is art not entertainment.

One example of this was demonstrated in the prequel to Franz Biebl’s Ave Maria. After briefly introducing the composer’s background, Neuen asked the men to sing a passage with crescendo and decrescendo. Because it was so repetitive, he asked them to sing the same passage again, adhering strictly to correct rhythm and articulation but without any variation in dynamics whatsoever. He did the same with the female singers. This short exercise gave a glimpse into the sort of extensive nuances Neuen asked of the choir members in the rehearsals —-  weaving colourful layers upon each other to paint an art work that does not just impress but take us on a journey far from the familiar.

After the concert: Celia Canty, David Neuen, and Angie Carr

For those of you who missed this concert, mark your diaries for their season finale concert on Saturday 30th April 2011 at 7 pm in the same location: Kihei Baptist Chapel. Strangers in Paradise will present an evening of music from broadway, movies, and opera. More info, visit Maui Choral Arts Association.