Concert program 05-31-2009

DAVID H. EDELFELT
MAY 31, 2009
MANY THANKS.
to the people who have served in leadership positions during 2008-2009: General Manager . Len BarkerPresident . David HuntSecretary . Nancy FridayTreasurer . Gary Hendrickson Board Members at Large. Anthony Green, Anne Harkonen, Steve WarnerVice President for Concerts . Tom Keller Chairs . Jamie Godshalk (Box Offi ce Manager), Anne Harkonen (Tickets), Harry Vroegh (Concert Manager), Ron Tolisano (House Manager) Pavane, Après un Rêve, Requiem—Gabriel Fauré Vice President for Fundraising . Hank Bohanon Chairs . Mary Ann Kissock (Program Ads), Harry Vroegh (Store Benefi t Days), Steve Warner (Patrons) Vice President for Operations . Julie McDowell Chairs . Bruce Gladfelter (Music Librarian), Anthony Green (Membership/Database), Yael Wurmfeld (Social) Vice President for Public Relations . Yael Wurmfeld Chairs . Marcia Bollo (Programs), Lenore Dupuis (Publicity), Kent Fuller (Mailings), Melinda Kwedar (Archivist), Jim Miller (Webmaster), Ellen Pullin (Desktop Publisher), Karen Rigotti (Community Relations), Milly Silverstein (Art) Legal Counsel . Kathryn SkeltonTax Issues Consultant . John Darrow Section Coordinators . Julie McDowell, Maria del Rosario Gomez, Myra Sieck, Antje Draganski, David Crumrine, Ronald Dahlquist Search Committee . Tom Keller, Len Barker, David Crumrine, Joan Daugherty, Lucinda Fuller, David Hunt, Julie McDowell, Karen Rigotti, Sue Wiegand Benefi t Committee . Hank Bohanon, Wes Bucey, Lynne Curtis, Susan Demaree, Lenore Dupuis, Lucinda Fuller, Anne Harkonen, Gary Hendrickson, Mars Longden, Sanna Longden, Julie McDowell, Jim Miller, Ellen Pullin, Karen Rigotti, John Shea, Paul Siegal, Steve Warner, Sue Wiegand, Nominating Committee . John Summerhays, Tom Olkowsky, Karen Rigotti, We also thank the many other volunteers for their efforts in making this season a success. We couldn’t have done it without you! THE NSCS IS SUPPORTED IN PART BY THE ILLINOIS ARTS COUNCIL Après un Reve
After a Dream
Pavane . Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) I dreamt of happiness, burning mirage, Vocalise . Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) Lux Aeterna .Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943) You called me and I left the earth Pour m’enfuir avec toi vers la lumière, To run away with you towards the light, Hélas! Hélas! triste réveil des songes Alas! Alas! sad awakening from dreams with Michelle Areyzaga, soprano, and Robert Orth, baritone Lux Aeterna
I. INTROITUS
Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. A hymn befi ts thee, 0 God in Zion, and to thee a vow shall be fulfi lled for unto thee all fl esh shall come. Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. II. IN TE, DOMINE, SPERAVI
and did not disdain the Virgin’s womb. Having blunted the sting of death, aperuisti credentibus regna coelorum.
You opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. Exortum est in tenebris lumen rectis.
A light has risen in the darkness for the upright. Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us. III. O NATA LUX
O nata lux de lumine,
the praises and prayers of your supplicants. Thou who once deigned to be clothed in fl esh Grant the deliverance of salvation, V. AGNUS DEI – LUX AETERNA
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, IV. VENI, SANCTE SPIRITUS
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord, in the company of thy Saints for ever and ever; Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. Translation Copyright 1988 by earthsongs Requiem
III. SANCTUS
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus
I. INTROIT and KYRIE
Heaven and earth are full of your glory. and let perpetual light shine upon them. A hymn, O God, becometh you in Zion: and a vow shall be paid to you in Jerusalem. IV. PIE JESU
grant them rest, everlasting rest. V. AGNUS DEI
who takes away the sins of the world: dona eis requiem, sempiternam requiem.
grant them rest, everlasting rest. II. OFFERTORY
May light eternal shine upon them, Lord, O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, and let perpetual light shine upon them. O Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, VI. LIBERA ME
Deliver me, Lord, from eternal death when the heavens and the earth shall be moved, dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. and you shalt come to judge the world by fi re. Sacrifi ces and prayers to you, Lord, at the destruction that shall come, Receive them for the souls of those Day of mourning, the great day, and most bitter. and let perpetual light shine upon them. NORTH SHORE CHORAL SOCIETY
VII. IN PARADISUM
May the angels lead you to Paradise, Marcia Maus Bollo Jane Kenamore Sally Ryan at your coming may the martyrs receive you, Louise Brueggemann Renata Lowe Karen Fish Schurder May the chorus of angels receive you, Maria del Rosario Gomez Ellen Pullin Kathleen Tolisano Judith Greene ALTO
Barbara Brantigan
INSTRUMENTALISTS
Mary Ann Kissock Loretta Smith Inge Kistler BASS TROMBONE
Violin II
Theresan Kaefer-Kelly Sanna Longden David Taylor BASS & BARITONE
CLARINET
REHEARSAL ACCOMPANIST
PROGRAM NOTES
Ethereal: adj. very light or airy, belonging to the heavens, otherworldlyLight: n. energy that makes seeing possible, the representation of light or the effect it has in a work of art, God as a source of spiritual illumination The foremost French composer of his generation, Gabriel Fauré was born in Pamiers, This afternoon’s program features music of the great French composer Gabriel Fauré, and trained as an organ master and choir director at the École Niedermeyer in Paris from as well as a singular work each from the celebrated Sergei Rachmaninoff and the contemporary 1854-1865. Among his teachers were several prominent French musicians including genius of Morten Lauridsen. Composed during a span of one hundred years, these divergent Saint-Saëns (just ten years older than Fauré) who introduced him to the music of such works are drawn together by the subject of Light. In Fauré’s Requiem, the familiar text from the Catholic Mass for the Dead speaks directly When Fauré died at the age of 79, he left behind a legacy of composition that covers an of “eternal light” and “perpetual light,” invoked to “shine forever” on those who have died. impressive array of mediums; dozens of pieces for piano, a myriad of songs for solo voice, It is asked that the dead be saved from “utter darkness” and the “darkness of hell,” perhaps extensive choral writing in both the secular and sacred genres, incidental music for dramatic implying that the unmistakable quality of heaven is Light itself. In the same composer’s plays and comedies, and chamber music for solo instrument and orchestra, as well as orchestra Après un Rêve, the singer wishes to return to the “awakening light” of his dream, now Written in 1886, Pavane is Fauré’s most celebrated work next to his Requiem. When Fauré In Lauridsen’s masterwork, Lux Aeterna (Light Eternal), each of the fi ve movements began work on the Pavane, he envisioned a purely orchestral work to be played at a series reference Light in their own way, the opening and closing movements not dissimilarly to of light summer concerts conducted by Jules Danbe. But after opting to dedicate the work to the Requiem of Fauré. The texts of the inner three movements, all drawn from sacred Latin his patron Elizabeth, comtesse Greffulhe, Fauré felt compelled to stage a somewhat grander sources, contain their own unique references to Light, including one of the most celebrative affair, and thus added an invisible chorus to accompany the orchestra, and a text by Robert moments in the work which uses the words, O Lux beatissima (O Light most blessed).
It is in the hearing of today’s two works without text – Pavane and Vocalise – in which The original choral lyrics were based on some inconsequential verses in the style of Verlaine perhaps the ear of the listener is most responsible for providing the connection to the theme which spoke of the romantic helplessness of man. From its fi rst performances in 1888, of Light. Yet how much easier it can often be to hear what music is saying without the the Pavane enjoyed immense popularity and entered the standard repertoire of the Ballets encumbrance of words. Additionally it is these two pieces which remind the listener that Russes in 1917. Two of Fauré’s pupils – Ravel and Debussy – went on to write well-known Light is most effective in the midst of darkness; that indeed without darkness, Light ceases pavanes of their own. In an effort to more closely capture Fauré’s original intent for the piece, this afternoon’s version, though still making use of Fauré’s exquisite choral writing, With Rachmaninoff’s Vocalise, the yearning for Light is an inevitable response to the dispenses with the text altogether, creating a mellifl uous vocalise for choir, which captures permeating darkness of the orchestration and the unfolding harmonic structure. Yet indeed the glowing beauty of this mesmerizing work without the distraction of a superfl uous text. Light is found, both in the iridescent quality of the upper notes of the soprano voice and in This is the premiere performance by the NSCS. the shimmering melody as it fi nally reaches its apex. Fauré’s Pavane, with its mesmerizing melodic line, seems to be in perpetual search of Light. As the melody is interchanged among the woodwinds, strings, and chorus, and as the tonality shifts back and forth from F# minor Though Fauré actually wrote few large-scale works, he is widely regarded as the greatest to A major, it is much like a cloud dancing with the sun; fi rst blocking it, then allowing it master of French song. Before penning the bolder, more powerful instrumental works of his later years, he wrote numerous songs with texts of varied themes which he often set to either Light fi lls all available space. So too do the gleaming sonorities of these three luminous sprightly melodies and rhythms, or melancholy ones, as befi tted the texts to which he was drawn. Being engaged as he was throughout the majority of the year with duties as teacher There are two ways of spreading light; and church organist, most of his song writing had to be done during summer holidays. to be the candle or the mirror that refl ects it. ~Edith Wharton Although Après un Rêve is one of Fauré’s earliest songs (1877), it is unquestionably his Yet a third version of the Requiem – published for full orchestra – received its premiere most popular. The fi rst of his Trois melodies, Op. 7, which also include Hymne (Op.7, No. 2) in July of 1900 during the Paris World Exhibition. Though there is some speculation as to and Barcarolle (Op. 7, No. 3), it has been transcribed for several solo instruments including how this third version came to be, it is believed to have been Fauré’s publisher Hamelle piano, yet remains best known in its intended form; as a song for solo voice. who suggested the expansion of the orchestra to secure more performances by turning the Requiem into a full concert work. The dreamy, languid, and richly expressive melodic line of Après un Rêve is set to words by Romain Bussine. The text – a French adaptation of an anonymous Italian poem – describes Whatever version is heard, and whatever attitude toward religion Fauré may have had, few a dream of a lover’s romantic rendezvous of an almost otherworldly kind, away from would argue that his Requiem is a work of extreme beauty and tranquility. Since its premiere darkness, and toward an awakening light. But the dreamer, now awake, longs to return to in 1888, it has been performed widely in various forms in both concert halls and churches, becoming – perhaps in part due to the absence of extreme technical diffi culties, in addition to its musical appeal – a favorite of musicians and audiences alike. Today’s performance – the fi rst by the NSCS in twenty years – is based on an edition by John Rutter which uses Fauré’s original chamber instrumentation, more clearly features Fauré’s fi rst instrumental Like so many French composers, Fauré was a church organist and choirmaster. Yet despite love – the church organ – and is undeniably less of a departure from what Fauré described the composer’s long association with the church, his religious sincerity has been questioned. in an 1888 letter to his friend Paul Poujaud as his “petite Requiem”. To be frank, it is widely believed that he was not a devout person. Emil Vuillermoz – a French critic and one-time composition student of Fauré – says he was an agnostic, and that his Requiem is “the work of a disbeliever who respects the belief of others.” Like many composers of all nationalities, Fauré was also a teacher of music, and taught at the Conservatoire in Paris. Among his distinguished pupils were Ravel, Koechlin, and Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in northwestern Russia to two amateur pianists. He began Nadia Boulanger, herself a famous conductor and teacher of both a mentor and student of his own study of the instrument at the age of four. Despite the fact he was found early on to be quite lazy and failed most of his classes in school, he would grow to become one of the fi nest pianists of his day.
Though Fauré is said to have begun work on his Requiem “purely for the pleasure of it” in 1887, it is doubtless that the death of both his parents – Fauré’s father died in 1885, Although Rachmaninoff established himself as a respected and popular conductor in addition his mother, two years later – had an impact on him and his composing. In setting the requiem to his piano skills, he remains most renowned for his compositional work, for which he text, Fauré omitted most of the DIES IRAE, the terrible description of judgment day, and showed an early aptitude. Today he is regarded as the last great representative of Russian selected instead passages of hope and comfort, not unlike Brahms in his A German Requiem. late Romanticism. He was largely infl uenced by the compositions of both Tchaikovsky and It concludes with the antiphon IN PARADISUM which is not part of the requiem mass. It is as Rimsky-Korsakov, though such infl uence gradually gave way to his own distinctive voice, if his intent is to comfort the bereaved rather than terrify them.
marked by pronounced lyricism, expressive line and lush orchestral color. His compositional skill is most marked, perhaps, by a striking gift for melody and its development. He wrote Like many large-scale works, Fauré’s Requiem has gone through several metamorphoses. extensive work for his beloved pianoforte – both as a solo instrument and with orchestra – The “fi rst version,” completed in 1888, consisted of fi ve moments, and continued to be as well as chamber music, songs, choral music and opera. performed as such until the end of the century, though Fauré also prepared an “expanded” version for grander occasions. Presented fi rst in 1893, this version added two extra After several early successes in composition, Rachmaninoff suffered a setback with severe movements; the OFFERTOIRE (written in 1889 and calling for a baritone solo) and the LIBERA depression, resulting in a three-year period during which he wrote virtually no music. ME (written in 1877 and originally intended as an independent composition for baritone Then in 1900 he met a psychologist named Nikolai Dahl – himself an amateur musician and organ). It was for this 1893 performance that Fauré is also said to have added certain – who practiced an early form of auto-suggestion. He made Rachmaninoff repeat over and over the words, “You will begin to write a concerto. You will work with great facility. The concerto will be of excellent quality.” The treatment continued for many months and Rachmaninoff began to recover both his In his book, Choral Music in the Twentieth Century, musicologist and conductor Nick confi dence and his creative ability. With his writer’s block completely overcome in 1901, Strimple describes Lauridsen as “the only American composer in history who can be called he fi nished his Piano Concerto No. 2 (Op. 18), which was performed in Moscow (and, a mystic, [whose] probing, serene work contains an elusive and indefi nable ingredient which incidentally, dedicated to Dr. Dahl) to great acclaim. Today it is possibly the best loved leaves the impression that all the questions have been answered.” piano concerto by concertgoers the world over.
Though he has also written a great deal of chamber music and solo piano music, Lauridsen’s Published in 1912 – three years after his fi rst tour of the United States as pianist but nine fi rst love is song; a natural partner to his second love, poetry. Not unlike Fauré, much of years before purchasing his fi rst home here – his Vocalise is the fi nal of his Fourteen Songs, Lauridsen’s composing is done during the summer months. He has said that while at his Op. 34. It is written for soprano (though occasionally also sung by tenor) and uses no words, summer home on a remote island off the coast of Washington, he is “able to commune with but rather a vowel (or vowels) of the singer’s choosing. The piece has been transcribed for a greater sense and greater being.” It was there he fi nished the Lux Aeterna, writing the fi nal various solo instruments and for orchestra alone, and remains one of the most familiar and beautiful melodies of his creation. Rachmaninoff dedicated it to the Ukrainian lyric-coloratura Lux Aeterna received its premier performance in 1997 by the Los Angeles Master Chorale soprano Antonina Nezhdanova, who gave the premiere performance of the Vocalise with under the direction of Paul Salamunovich. It is a “non-liturgical requiem” despite the opening and closing movements (INTROITUS and AGNUS DEI – LUX AETERNA), which are taken from the traditional Catholic Mass for the Dead. The themes of the texts for the middle three movements are more Trinitarian (TE DEUM, God the Father; O NATA LUX, God the Son; VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS, God the Holy Spirit) and are all drawn from sacred Latin sources, each containing references to Light. At the close of the fi nal movement, the composer adds Morten Johannes Lauridsen was born in Colfax, Washington on February 27, 1943 – a joyful Alleluia “tag” before a seven-fold Amen brings the listener back once more to the thirty-one days before Rachmaninoff’s death – and raised in Portland, Oregon. As a young refl ective quietness with which the work began.
boy Lauridsen developed a love for music as he listened to his mother playing jazz piano and singing to him. At age eight he started playing piano and a few years later, learned to Mr. Lauridsen has said his intention for the work was that it be an “intimate work of quiet serenity,” using texts which express “hope, reassurance, faith and illumination in all of its manifestations.” In choosing texts for his music, he looks for poems that have universal He fi rst attended Whitman College where, yet unsure of his call to a life in music, he themes, and explains why he has received vast amounts of mail on the Lux Aeterna; “… studied English and History. During that summer he worked as a Forest Service fi refi ghter because every one of the fi ve movements relates to light, a universal symbol in so many and lookout on an isolated tower near Mt. St. Helens. It was there he did a good deal of ways. It was a great deal of pleasure to write. I wrote it as my mother was in the process of “self-examination” and decided he really did belong in music, though yet unsure in what dying, so it was a way of, as so many artists do, of dealing with that kind of a situation in capacity. After another year at Whitman, where he took “every music class he could lay his hands on”, he transferred to the University of Southern California, where he studied advanced composition with Ingolf Dahl, Halsey Stevens, Robert Linn and Harold Owen.
The result is a choral masterwork of uncommon richness and complexity, of beauty and serenity. It is at once contemporary and traditional – current and timeless, and in this writer’s Currently considered America’s greatest contemporary composer of choral music, Morten opinion, will continue to be performed and heard as long as there are musicians and audiences. Lauridsen has become one of the most performed living composers in the country. This afternoon the NSCS performs this work for the fi rst time.
His works have been recorded on more than a hundred CDs, three of which have received Grammy nominations. He is the recipient of numerous grants, prizes and commissions, and in November of 2007 was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Bush, citing Someday perhaps the inner light will shine forth from us, his “compositions of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power, and spiritual and then we’ll need no other light. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide.” Program notes Copyright 2009 by David H. Edelfelt the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, BIOGRAPHIES
Seattle, Denver, Indianapolis, and Washington, D.C., in repertoire Michelle Areyzaga, soprano Following a “Stunning” (Opera Magazine) debut in
ranging from Brahms’ Requiem to Broadway pops to his most The Kaiser of Atlantis for Chicago Opera Theatre, Michelle Areyzaga has demonstrated repeated symphonic piece, Carmina Burana.
her vocal diversity in a variety of operatic roles including Cunegonde, Pamina, Susanna, Sophie (Werther), Musetta, Lauretta, Adele, Zerlina, Despina, Serpina, and Belinda. Mr. Orth has become known particularly for his roles in new She has performed with companies including Chicago Opera Theater, Lyric Opera of Chicago’s American operas like Richard Nixon in Nixon in China, Frank “In the Neighborhoods,” Opera Theatre North, DuPage Opera Theatre, Chicago Light Opera Lloyd Wright in Shining Brow, John Buchanan Jr. in the televised Works, and Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México. Most recently she reprised the role of broadcast of Summer and Smoke, The Father in Six Characters Zerlina for her Opera Birmingham début, and sang Pamina as part of Chicago’s Silk Road in Search of an Author, The Lodger in The Aspern Papers, Initiative, a production which aired on public television. The Lecturer in A Waterbird Talk, and Horace Tabor in The Ballad of Baby Doe. His world premieres include Harvey Milk in the title role, Dead Man Walking Recent concert engagements include Gustavo Leone’s Mundo as Owen Hart, The End of the Affair as Mr. Parkis, The Grapes of Wrath as Uncle John, at the Grant Park Music Festival, and “Bernstein on Broadway” Brief Encounter as Albert Godby, and the oratorio August 4, 1964 as Lyndon Johnson.
in both Cleveland and Long Island, NY. Ms. Areyzaga’s many and varied future engagements include performances Robert Orth can be heard on these recordings: Six Characters in Search of an Author by in Chicago, Michigan, New York and San Jose, as well as Weisgall, Harvey Milk by Wallace, Dead Man Walking by Heggie, The Telephone by Menotti, Costa Rica for that country’s fi rst ever performance of J. S. Bach’s The Grapes of Wrath by Gordon, Hansel and Gretel by Humperdink, and Shining Brow by Hagen. Adams’ Nixon in China is to be released later this year.
Ms. Areyzaga made her European concert début as soloist Future engagements include the world premiere of Jake Heggie’s Moby Dick in Dallas in Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G Minor at England’s York and San Diego, Sondheim’s A Little Night Music in Central City, Colorado, and Adams’ Minster Cathedral, Ely Cathedral, and St. Mary’s Church in Nixon in China in Vancouver and Toronto. Oxford. In Paris, she received standing ovations as soloist in the Lord Nelson Mass with the orchestra of London’s Royal Academy of Music and the David H. Edelfelt has built a multi-faceted musical career since moving to Chicago from
upstate New York in 1985. He is currently fi nishing his eleventh year as director of the As a recording artist, Ms. Areyzaga’s CD, The Sun Is Love was released on the Proteus Chancel Choir and Motet Choir at First Presbyterian Church, Libertyville where his duties label with The American Record Guide stating: “This album’s appeal owes much to the include leading choir and orchestra in major choral works. singing of Michelle Areyzaga, who has a sweet, unaffected voice and meticulous diction He previously served Bethel UCC in Elmhurst as Minister of just right for these appealing tunes.” Current recording projects include CDs of the songs of Music where he directed the adult choir and festival choirs. In 2000, Mr. Edelfelt had the opportunity to travel abroad as assistant conductor to a touring choir that presented concerts in Ms. Areyzaga was named by Pioneer Press as Chicago’s “Artist of the Year” for 2006.
Robert Orth, Baritone was named “Artist of the Year” by both New York City Opera and
As a bass-baritone, Mr. Edelfelt has sung operatic roles from Seattle Opera. He has sung for almost every major opera company in the United States, Mozart to Menotti. On the musical theater stage his roles including those in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston, Washington, have ranged from Rodgers & Hammerstein to Kander & Ebb. D.C., Seattle, Portland, Miami, Denver, and San Diego. He has also appeared as soloist with In oratorio work he has performed the roles of Handel, Bach and Schubert, and the Requiems of Fauré, Mozart and Verdi. In the genre of choral music, he has sung under Robert Shaw, Erich Leinsdorf, Franz Allers, Fritz Mahler, Abraham Many thanks to the businesses and organizations that supported Kaplan, Brock McElheran, Eve Queler, and Julius Rudel. In his latest vocal endeavor – our Silent Auction fundraiser on Saturday, November 15, 2008: the cabaret scene in Chicago – the Chicago Tribune recently declared that he “probably sounds great singing the weather forecast… he’s just blessed with a luxuriant instrument.” At his private studio in Chicago, Mr. Edelfelt is a popular and in-demand voice teacher, vocal coach, accompanist and arranger to some of Chicago’s most talented and successful singers, including many other area voice teachers. He is a graduate of the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York where he received a BM degree in music education, and Northwestern University where he earned an MM degree in vocal performance. Mr. Edelfelt is a previous student of piano, organ, voice, clarinet, trumpet, cello, and percussion, and counts among his teachers Robert Shaw, Stanley Chapple, and Brock McElheran.
Sharon Rich Peterson has served as accompanist for the NSCS from
1979 to 1989 and 1994 to the present, having lived in Norway with her family in the interim. During those fi ve years she was accompanist at the Royal Academy of Music in Oslo and developed a specialty in Scandinavian piano repertoire which she had begun two years earlier in Sweden. Sharon is a graduate of North Park College and Northwestern and thanks to Illinois State Senator Jeff Schoenberg for his “Page for a Day” opportunity! University and has given several benefi t concerts for the NSCS. She has accompanied the Lyric Opera Chorus and has been Music Director of the Lyric Opera Center for American Artists’s touring production of The Magic Flute. She was the Swedish and Norwegian Language Coach for the 2006 season of the Steans Institute at Ravinia, working with Swedish Baritone Håkan Hagegård. She currently accompanies Chicago Symphony Chorus and at Northwestern University. Active as recitalist and vocal coach, Sharon is also organist at North Park Covenant Church and North Park Theological Seminary.
is a not-for-profi t community chorus founded over seventy years ago that has given many hundreds of non-professional singers the opportunity to perform choral masterworks, Twenty notes imprinted with a facsimile of a portion both classical and contemporary. Contact us at P.O. Box 103, Evanston, IL 60204-0103 of the original manuscript of Handel’s Messiah for only $10.00.
or call our General Manager, Len Barker, at (847) 272-2351. Half that amount becomes a contribution to help Visit our website at www.northshorechoral.org NSCS continue to bring quality choral concerts to its audiences. The North Shore Choral Society explores, studies, and performs
a wide range of choral music for the enrichment and enjoyment
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of its singers and audiences.
them have produced seven and three-fourths grandchildren—all of whom, Kent says,“live too far away.” Since Jerry retired from teaching math and science and Kent from EET THE MEMBERS OF TH
RTH SHORE CHORAL SOCIE
the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency, they have done a bit of international travel in addition to visiting grandchildren. Much of their travel has been with small groups of conservationists visiting counterparts working in volunteer ecological conservation in other countries, including Honduras, Guatemala, and South Africa. In addition, they organize Finding a common ingredient among North Shore Choral Society members is almost impossible volunteers from school and corporate groups, who have contributed thousands of hours of – except, of course, their love of choral singing. These members are proof of this diversity.
conservation work in nearby woods and prairies.
Coming from opposite sides of the earth, Mei and Doug Aden were united by choral
music, which has been an important part of their lives ever since. Mei grew up in
Born and raised in western Pennsylvania, Dorothy Scott “bounced around a while,”
Singapore, where she spoke Cantonese at home and attended schools taught in English. she says, before settling in Evanston in 1990. After graduating from the University of At the University of Singapore, she sang in several groups and had the opportunity to Pittsburgh, she moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts; then back to Pittsburgh; then to Lincoln travel to England with the University of Singapore Choir and Choir Ensemble. She was a Park, a small town in northern New Jersey. While there, she was member of a community founding member of the Singapore Symphony Chorus. When not singing, Mei worked chorus that performed in two exciting venues: Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center and Carnegie on the bond desk of an international bank. She also ran in two Singapore marathons. Hall. Dorothy has been married for thirty-one years and has two grown children, a daughter Doug grew up in Illinois and attended New Trier High School, where he sang in all who works in Washington, D.C., and a son who has just graduated from Carthage College. available ensembles and school shows. He went west for college at Stanford and law She is Communications Director at Sg2, an international health care intelligence company school at Berkeley, singing throughout in university groups both small and large; he based in Skokie that advises hospitals, health systems, and other clients on strategy, operations, especially enjoyed being part of the Mendicants, an a cappella men’s group. Doug’s and performance. Previous jobs in medical education and communications took her to career as an international lawyer took him to Singapore, where he and Mei met singing venues all across the United States, as well as London, Paris, Stockholm, and Rio de Janeiro. Dvorak’s Stabat Mater in the Singapore Symphony Chorus. Several years later, Doug Singing in choruses and choirs is “just about my favorite thing to do,” Dorothy says, and and Mei decided to get married and sing together permanently. They moved to New she joined the soprano section of NSCS in 2004. She also enjoys yoga and bicycling.
York City, where they joined the Oratorio Society and sang regularly in Carnegie Hall. Then they spent several years in Beijing and helped found the International Lori Smith is a nurse. She received her undergraduate degree in nursing from Rush Medical
Festival Chorus, which gave them special opportunities—like premiering Mozart’s School, and completed her graduate studies in exercise physiology and cardiac rehab at Requiem in modern China on the night before Easter in the Forbidden City Concert Northeastern Illinois University. She has worked in various nursing roles: bedside, public Hall. Now back in Illinois, Mei and Doug sing in the Kenilworth Union Church health, corporate health, health promotion, mental health counseling, school health, and Choir and the Bach Week Festival Chorus—and of course the soprano and tenor geriatrics. She currently works in neurology in Evanston Hospital’s Sleep Disorder Program. sections of the North Shore Choral Society.
Her interest has always been to focus more on wellness and improving health than on illness and rehabilitation. Lori loves to walk and ride her bicycle, always trying to get around on For over thirty years, Kent Fuller was involved in meetings of Glenview’s village
her own power. She does Pilates and Feldenkrais work, and meditates every day. Reading, government on Tuesday evenings, fi rst with the Plan Commission, later with the sewing, knitting, and crocheting are among her other interests. Lori’s husband Stephen Board of Trustees. During most of those years, he watched his sister (Lucinda) and is an elementary school principal in Elmhurst; he has worked in Evanston and Wilmette brother-in–law (Dan Woodard) going off to rehearsals of the North Shore Choral districts as well. Their son Justin lives in Chicago and is looking for work in information Society. Finally the time came when he had Tuesday evenings free. He summoned technology. Daughter Stephanie is in graduate school at the University of Findlay in Ohio. up the courage to audition—and immediately began taking singing lessons. This is And other daughter Anita is fi nishing her junior year at Illinois State University, majoring Kent’s third season in the bass section of NSCS; he also has responsibility for the in special education. Though Lori sang as a soprano in high school and college, she has Society’s mailings. Kent and his wife Jerry have four grown children, who among sung in the NSCS alto section since 1985.
The businesses and organizations listed in this program have been very helpful to us in First Bank of
bringing you this concert. Please think of them when you need the services and products LEGACY GIFTS
they offer and tell them how much we appreciate their support! Highland Park
audiences of the future by providing for a non-profi t organization designated by Family Medicine Associates of Lutheran General Kathleen Buchanan Trusdell, Psychotherapy Evanston Symphony OrchestraHorizon Brass Quintet Three Crowns ParkVisiting Angels of Chicago NorthShore PRINTING & OFFICE SUPPLIESQuartet Copies GIFTS IN KIND
Computer Services: Paul M.W. Green Copying and Printing: Central Avenue Printing; Mars Longden; Quartet Copies Credit Card Services: First Bank & Trust of Evanston Facilities: Northminster Presbyterian Church, Evanston; Graphic Design: Olver Dunlop Associates Music: Educational Music Service; Music Unlimited Publicity Mailings: Lenore Dupuis Public Relations Frank Kiesel & Associates Hair DesignSalon Roula North Shore Choral Society 73rd Season 2008-2009
Today marks the end of our season titled New Directions. For the past nine months, the singers of the North Shore Choral Society have had the pleasure of singing and learning under the direction of three talented musicians who have prepared us to present three engaging concerts. Last November, Julia Davids made the standard movements of the traditional Mass an “extraordinary” experience through the music of eight different composers. In March, David Štech gave us “music for the soul” in psalms set to music by Bernstein and Rachmaninoff, plus Durufl é’s memorable Requiem. And this afternoon, David H. Edelfelt moves the chorus to shed “ethereal light” on works by Gabriel Fauré (his well-known and well-loved Requiem, plus Pavane, a wordless vocalise) and Morten Lauridsen (his choral masterwork Lux Aeterna). Please take a few minutes to read David’s extensive and enlightening program notes elsewhere in this program. In the next few weeks, the NSCS Board of Directors will select one of these three to become our new Music Director. Those of you who have attended all three concerts know how diffi cult this decision will be. We are guaranteed, however, that whoever succeeds to this position is fully capable of continuing the legacy of quality choral music established by the Society. If you are not on our mailing list and would like information about our next season, please leave your name and address at the box offi ce today. If you are, please join us again in the fall to see just where these “new directions” are taking us.

Source: http://www.northshorechoral.org/seasons/08-09/NSCS%20Program%2005-2009.pdf