This weekend’s concert features our Principal Cellist Lahni Russell in a unique piece. Canadian composer Jocelyn Morlock’s work Exaudi is scored for solo cello and choir – it’s become a bit of a calling card for the Canadian Chamber Choir, and has quickly gained fame as one of the great Canadian choral works.
Lahni Russell joined the Saskatoon Symphony as Principal Cellist/Artist in Residence in 1989. A student of the world-renowned cellist, Janos Starker, she completed Bachelor and Master of Music degrees from Indiana University, both with High Distinction. She served as an Associate Instructor of Cello at IU and was awarded the IU School of Music’s prestigious Performer’s Certificate. She has performed in the master classes of Yo Yo Ma, Paul Tortelier, Zara Nelsova, Aldo Parisot, Anner Bylsma, Ronald Leonard, Zoltan Szekely, Timothy Eddy, and Joel Krosnick.
She is the only cellist to have won the Saskatchewan Concerto Competition and has played solos with the Regina Symphony, the Calgary Philharmonic Players, the Saskatchewan Chamber Orchestra, Saskatoon Symphony and the Tanglewood Centre Orchestra. Her orchestral experiences include numerous performances as Solo Cellist with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (North American tours), the Colorado Music Festival, Principal Cellist with Saskatoon Opera, and earning tenure as a member of the Vancouver Symphony. She is the founding cellist of the University of Saskatchewan Amati Quartet, the Black Pearl Alkemykal String Quartet and Prairie Virtuosi.
Ms. Russell is also an accomplished luthier and bowmaker, with a focus on restorations. She has studied the art of violin and bow making/restoration with Ole Stefan Dahl, Benjamin Ruth, Hans Nebel, Horst Klaus, Rodney Mohr and William Salchow. For over three decades Lahni has served musicians from beginners to professionals across Canada. Her clients have included the principal players of the Vancouver Symphony, Erica Raum (Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto), Lara St. John, and many string players of the Victoria, Regina and Saskatoon Symphonies.
In the tradition of her cello mentor, Janos Starker, Lahni considers teaching a fundamental aspect of performing. She has an avid interest in neuroscience and its applications to teaching, performance and being human.
Hear her this weekend with the Canadian Chamber Choir in this remarkable piece.
It began as an unlikely dream nurtured by alumni of the 1999 National Youth Choir, and became a phenomenon that grew out of passion and determination. A decade and a half later, the Juno-nominated Canadian Chamber Choir has matured into an artistic force whose mandate to bring new and existing Canadian choral music to every corner of Canada has allowed singers, conductors, audiences, and composers to come together in celebration of the depth of this country’s choral heritage. Under the artistic direction of renowned conductor and music educator Julia Davids, the CCC has pursued artistic excellence in every performance while always remaining true to its core mission: building community through choral singing.
The CCC offers some of Canada’s finest choral singers a professional choral environment in which to nurture their gifts, and the singers in turn give of their talents to the communities in which they perform. Each CCC tour features workshops for local singers and conductors of all ages and stages, as well as performances of diverse music by Canadian composers both established and emerging. Through these interactions, the CCC has inspired, nurtured, and mentored thousands of choral enthusiasts while working tirelessly to champion the vast wealth of choral music created in Canada. The power of this unique vision has allowed the CCC to truly become Canada’s coast-to-coast chamber choir.
In order to make music with 17 singers, an artistic director, and an accompanist who are spread across Canada, the CCC organizes short ‘projects’ in different locations around the country. Usually 7-10 days in length, the choir will convene in the province of choice and spend 3-4 days in rehearsal; singers will have received their music in the mail and learned it prior to arrival. During the rehearsal period, a local school, choir, or community group will host the CCC’s residency, and in turn the CCC gives workshops to local choirs in the community. The CCC then hits the road on a mini-tour, giving a combination of concerts and workshops throughout the province.
The Canadian Chamber Choir was formed in July of 1999 by a group of young musicians energized by rich formative experiences in university and youth choirs. These enthusiastic singers were looking for professional choral opportunities, but many did not live in cities that supported professional choirs. Their desire was to create an artistic environment accessible to dedicated singers from across the country, one that would allow them to strive for and achieve the highest level of artistic excellence. It was decided that this could be best achieved in short intensive ‘projects’ held periodically throughout the year.
The CCC has spanned the country with projects in British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario, Québec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Alberta, Saskatchewan and plans to continue reaching into all corners of Canada. Their varied concert performances include guest performances in festivals and concert series, as well as self-produced concerts and collaborations with local choirs and musicians. The CCC often affiliates itself with local schools and choirs in the areas they visit, resulting in a symbiotic relationship that is equally rewarding for the CCC and the community. The choir shows ease, skill, and good humour in facilitating workshops with choirs of all ages and abilities.
The CCC’s original artistic director, Montreal conductor Iwan Edwards, was instrumental in leading and mentoring the choir through its formative years. In passing the torch on to Julia Davids, the choir enters a new phase in their development – moving forward under the vision and talent of one of Canada’s rising new choral conductors.
The Canadian Chamber Choir/Choeur de chambre du Canada (CCC) is a national ensemble of professional level choral artists who travel from sea to sea to promote Canadian music and build community through singing. Under the visionary leadership of Julia Davids, the choir convenes in a different region of Canada at least twice a year, offering concerts and mentoring choral practitioners of all ages and stages.
Wherever the Canadian Chamber Choir performs, they are met with praise for their expressive, committed interpretations, and their warm enthusiasm for sharing their gifts in the community. Concerts feature world premieres on every tour, workshops draw singers at any ability-level into vibrant musicmaking, and masterclasses offer conductors and composers hands-on experience with one of the finest choirs on the continent.
Passionate vocal pedagogue and champion of Canadian repertoire, Julia Davids has been artistic director of the CCC since 2004. She is co-author of Vocal Technique: A Guide for Conductors, Teachers, and Singers (Waveland Press, 2012) and is consistently praised for her skill with singers at every stage of development.
The Canadian Chamber Choir joins the SSO for our performance of Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man on February 10th.
2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Armistice, the November 11th end of the Great War. The SSO will spend time during the year to explore the musical search and endeavour for peace.
We begin our dialogue with Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man on February 10th.
In addition to extracts from the Ordinary of the Mass, the text incorporates words from other religious and historical sources, including the Islamic call to prayer, the Bible (e.g. the Psalms and Revelation), and the Mahabharata. Writers whose words appear in the work include Rudyard Kipling, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and Sankichi Toge, who survived the Hiroshima bombing but died some years later of leukaemia.
The Armed Man charts the growing menace of a descent into war, interspersed with moments of reflection; shows the horrors that war brings; and ends with the hope for peace in a new millennium, when “sorrow, pain and death can be overcome”. It begins with a representation of marching feet, overlaid later by the shrill tones of a piccolo impersonating the flutes of a military band with the 15th-century French words of “The Armed Man”. After the reflective pause of the Call to Prayer and the Kyrie, “Save Us From Bloody Men” appeals for God’s help against our enemies in words from the Book of Psalms. The Sanctus has a military, menacing air, followed by Kipling’s “Hymn Before Action”. “Charge!” draws on words from John Dryden’s “A song for St. Cecilia’s day” (1687) and Jonathan Swift citing Horace (Odes 3,2,13), beginning with martial trumpets and song, but ending in the agonised screams of the dying. This is followed by the eerie silence of the battlefield after action, broken by a lone trumpet playing the Last Post. “Angry Flames” describes the appalling scenes after the bombing of Hiroshima, and “Torches” parallels this with an excerpt from the Mahabharata (book 1, chapter 228), describing the terror and suffering of animals dying in the burning of the Khandava Forest. Agnus Dei is followed by “Now the Guns have Stopped”, written by Guy Wilson himself as part of a Royal Armouries display on the guilt felt by some returning survivors of World War I. After the Benedictus, “Better is Peace” ends the mass on a note of hope, drawing on the hard-won understanding of Lancelot and Guinevere that peace is better than war, on Tennyson’s poem “Ring Out, Wild Bells” and on the text from Revelation (21,4): “God shall wipe away all tears”.
Our Armed Man performance features the Canadian Chamber Choir and Greystone Singers.
During our special Homecoming concert week celebrations there are many free events that you can take in.
Music Talk at McNally Robinson with Tania Miller
Tuesday, January 16th at 7pm-8pm
McNally Robinson
Join SSO Executive Director Mark Turner in conversation with Tania Miller. Find out how Tania’s Saskatchewan roots have influenced her career, her thoughts on Brahms’ beautiful 3rd Symphony, and how she feels about this special homecoming concert.
Fine Arts Research Lecture – Tania Miller – Making Great Music
Friday, January 19th at 12:30pm-1:20pm
Quance Theatre, U of S
Tania Miller gives a free public lecture on the conductor’s perspective on the role of leadership.
We can equate “making great music” from the musicians in the symphony to “inspiring great performance” from members of any organization. Tania Miller will discuss the role of a symphony conductor, and how leadership and communication through music is metaphorically applicable to any organization. She will discuss the hierarchy and expectations within a professional orchestra, and specifically how great leadership is built upon inspiration, vision, and a culture of respect. She will explore interaction and expectations of a professional orchestra and the role of conductor as non-verbal communicator and interpreter of orchestral music.
Master Class with Guy Few
Friday, January 19th at 3:30pm-5pm
Room 1004
Guy Few’s instrumental versatility and fearless interpretations have been noted by the international press, “outrageous… simply phenomenal” (Le Devoir, Montreal) and “sheer brilliance” (L.A. Times). He has performed with many Canadian and US symphonies as trumpet, piano, corno and vocal soloist.
Guy has debuted concerti by well-known composers including Melissa Hui, Glenn Buhr, Mathieu Lussier, Michael Occhipinti and Jacques Hetu. The next day he performs a brand new Trumpet Concerto by John Estacio with the SSO.
The score was commissioned in 1898 by Mrs Patrick Campbell for the play’s first production in English, in which she starred with Johnston Forbes-Robertson and John Martin-Harvey. Mrs Campbell had invited Debussy to compose the music, but he was busy working on his operatic version of Maeterlinck’s play, and declined the invitation. Debussy in his letter said: “j’aimerai toujours mieux une chose où, en quelque sorte, l’action sera sacrifiée à l’expression longuement poursuivie des sentiments de l’âme. Il me semble que là, la musique peut se faire plus humaine, plus vécue, que l’on peut creuser et raffiner les moyens d’expression” (“I will always prefer a thing in which, in a way, the action is sacrificed for the expression sought after by the soul. It seems to me that in that case, the music is more human, more lived, that we can refine our means of expression”).
Fauré was in London in March and April 1898, and was introduced to Mrs Campbell by the musical benefactor Frank Schuster. Fauré accepted her invitation to compose the music for the production, despite the tight deadline – the play was to open in June of that year. He wrote to his wife, “I will have to grind away hard for Mélisande when I get back. I hardly have a month and a half to write all that music. True, some of it is already in my thick head!” It was Mrs Campbell who commissioned Fauré to write the incidental music to the play. She “felt sure M. Gabriel Fauré was the composer needed.”
As he often did, Fauré reused music written for incomplete or unsuccessful works. A sicilienne from his unfinished 1893 score for Le Bourgeois gentilhomme was the most substantial piece retrieved for Pelléas et Mélisande. Pressed for time, and never greatly interested in orchestrating, Fauré enlisted the help of his pupil Charles Koechlin, who accompanied him to London. The complete incidental music comprised 19 pieces (2 are missing) of varying length and importance.
Fauré conducted the orchestra for the premiere, at the Prince of Wales’s Theatre on 21 June 1898. Mrs Campbell was enchanted by his music, in which, she wrote, “he had grasped with most tender inspiration the poetic purity that pervades and envelops M. Maeterlinck’s lovely play”. She asked him to compose further theatre music for her in the first decade of the 20th century, but to his regret his workload as director of the Paris Conservatoire made it impossible. Over the next 14 years, she revived the play, always using Fauré’s score. In 1904, the music was used for a production of the original French version of the play, starring Sarah Bernhardt. Fauré’s incidental music was used again in Georgette Leblanc’s production of the play in the cloisters and gardens of Saint-Wandrille abbey in August 1910, conducted by Albert Wolff.
There are two different versions of the original theatre score for Pelléas et Mélisande in existence. The first is Koechlin’s autograph of the orchestral score, dating from May and June 1898, and incorporating several rough sketches by Fauré in short score. The second is the conducting score used by Fauré in London; this is also a manuscript in Koechlin’s handwriting
Fauré later reused the music for Mélisande’s song in his song cycle La chanson d’Ève, adapting it to fit words by the Symbolist poet Charles van Lerberghe. The Sicilienne became very popular as an independent piece, with arrangements for flute and piano (by Henri Büsser among others), for cello and piano, as well as other instruments. Extracts from Pelléas et Mélisande were used by George Balanchine as the score for the Emeralds section of his 1967 ballet Jewels.
After Fauré, three other leading composers completed works inspired by Maeterlinck’s drama: Debussy’s opera (1902), Schoenberg’s early tone poem (1903) and Sibelius’s incidental music (1905).
After the run of the play in London, Fauré drew on the music for a short orchestral suite, which he orchestrated himself, using Koechlin’s London score as a starting point. The original orchestration for the London production consisted of two flutes, one oboe, two clarinets, one bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, harp and string quartet. Fauré reorchestrated for larger forces, including a normal string complement and second oboe, second bassoon and third and fourth horns. He also rewrote several passages, notably the climaxes in the first, third and fourth movements.
The suite at first consisted of the Prélude, Fileuse (entr’acte to Act 3) and La mort de Mélisande (entr’acte to Act 4). In this form it was premiered at the Concerts Lamoureux in February 1901. Fauré was not happy with the performance, telling his wife that the conductor, Camille Chevillard did not really understand the music. Fauré later added the Sicilienne. This version of the suite was published in 1909. The suite is sometimes performed with the addition of Mélisande’s song “The King’s three blind daughters”, in Koechlin’s orchestration.
Prélude (quasi adagio)
The Prélude is based on two themes; the first is tightly restricted, with no large melodic intervals between successive notes. The critic Gerald Larner suggests that this theme reflects Mélisande’s introverted personality. The second theme is introduced by a romantic solo cello with woodwind, and may, in Larner’s view represent Mélisande as first seen by her future husband, Golaud. The horn calls near the end of this movement may suggest Golaud’s discovery of Mélisande in the forest.
Fileuse (andantino quasi allegretto)
La Fileuse is an orchestral representation of a spinning song. The Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux notes that although Debussy omits it in his operatic version, Mélisande is shown at her spinning wheel in Maeterlinck’s play. A gentle oboe melody is accompanied by the strings, who maintain a theme imitative of spinning.
Sicilienne (allegro molto moderato)
The movement although in the traditionally sad key of G minor, represents, in Larner’s view, “the one moment of happiness shared by Pelléas and Mélisande”. Nectoux writes that although the piece was reused from an earlier work (incidental music to Molière’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) very few people would guess that it was not composed for Pelléas and Mélisande, so appropriate is it to its purpose. This is the movement of the suite that differs least from Koechlin’s London score; Fauré made only minor textual amendments to it.
Mort de Mélisande (molto adagio)
The last movement, in D minor, is inescapably tragic, with a theme of lamentation for clarinets and flutes. There are echoes of Mélisande’s song throughout the movement. The opening theme returns fortissimo on the strings “before a last echo of the song and a sadly modal approach on solo flute to the final chord” (Larner). This movement was played at Fauré’s own funeral.
Versatile and fearless…that’s the perfect way to describe Guy Few’s attitude and performances on stage. Guy grew up in Saskatoon, and made his orchestral debut with the SSO in the 1980s.
His interpretations have been noted by the international press, “outrageous… simply phenomenal” (Le Devoir, Montreal) and “sheer brilliance” (L.A. Times). He has performed with many Canadian and US symphonies as trumpet, piano, corno and vocal soloist.
Guy has debuted concerti by well-known composers including Melissa Hui, Glenn Buhr, Mathieu Lussier, Michael Occhipinti and Jacques Hetu. In 2017, 2018 he will present a new concerto by John Estacio.
A prolific recording artist, Guy has released CDs on numerous labels including S.N.E., Arsis Classics, CBC Musica Viva, CBC SM5000, Naxos, Hänssler Classics and MSR Classics labels. Recording awards include a JUNO nomination, (CCP/Paetkau/MSR), a Grammy for Penderecki Credo (OBF principal trumpet/Rilling/Hänssler), and Best Classical Orchestral Album from Just Plain Folks Music Awards (Bacchanale, TCO/Kevin Mallon/MSR). Guy also received a 2017 JPF nomination in the contemporary classical category (CCP Vol 1/MSR).
Guy has appeared on CBC-TV, CTV, BRAVO, TV5 and European television broadcasts and is heard regularly on CBC Radio, and NPR. He is a Yamaha artist.
In addition to his active career as a soloist, Guy remains a committed and prolific chamber artist in a range of ensembles including Few Mara Duo, Bellows and Brass, Few and Fewer and Project Aria. Guy has been a featured guest at acclaimed summer festivals including Festival of the Sound, Tanglewood, Takefu International Music Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, Sweetwater, Elora Festival and Ottawa International Chamber Music Festival.
Guy has been a keynote speaker for brain injury associations in Canada and the USA. The presentations concern his two brain surgeries for Cavernous Hemangioma, the resulting memory loss and complications. Guy has been invited to speak on this topic for CBC TV and Radio (Peter Gzowski, Shelagh Rogers, This is my Music), Global TV affiliates, CTV, NPR, as well as symposia such as Bach and the Brain, Surgery Grand Rounds and OMEA. His speech, “Mokuso”, features meditations for pain and stage fright. He is also featured regularly in the international press.
The SSO is thrilled have Tania Miller return to our podium for this very special Homecoming concert. She grew up in Foam Lake, did her undergrad at the University of Saskatchewan, and taught band in Outlook before going on to become one of Canada’s most respected musicians.
She has distinguished herself as a dynamic interpreter, musician and innovator on the podium and off. Returning this season to the podium of the Chicago Symphony as well as the orchestras of the Toronto Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic and Orchestra Métropolitain de Montreal, Miller has appeared as a guest conductor in Canada, the United States and Europe with such orchestras as the Bern Symphony Orchestra, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Oregon Symphony, National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa), Vancouver Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic, Naples Philharmonic, and Hartford Symphony among others.
Over the past 14 years as Music Director of the Victoria Symphony in Canada, Tania Miller gained national acclaim for her passion and commitment to the orchestra and community. She was the driving force behind new growth, innovation and quality for the Victoria Symphony, and gained a national reputation as a highly effective advocate and communicator for the arts. As curator, she distinguished herself as a visionary leader and innovator.
Acknowledged for the impact and success of her tenure, she was recently bestowed with the title Music Director Emerita of the Victoria Symphony. Recipient of the 2017 Friends of Canadian Music award from the Canadian League of Composers and Canadian Music Centre for her acclaimed commitment to contemporary music in Canada, Tania Miller has been a story about the impact of commitment and dedication to an orchestra and to the future of orchestral music through creative innovation and vision.
On the podium, Maestra Miller projects authority, dynamism and sheer love of the experience of making music. As one critic put it, she delivers “a calm intensity . . . expressive, colourful and full of life . . . her experience and charisma are audible”. Others call her performances “technically immaculate, vivid and stirring”.
In 2015, Miller received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Royal Roads University in recognition of her exemplary work as a leader and for her extraordinary artistic achievements in the community. In addition she was a recipient of the 2016 Paul Harris Award from the Rotary Foundation for distinguished musical excellence and leadership. Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music bestowed her with an Honorary Diploma in 2015 for her impact on music in Canada.
Maestra Miller’s early passion was opera; she conducted numerous productions for Michigan Opera Works in Ann Arbor (where she served as Artistic Director) and Opera McGill in Montréal. She obtained her doctoral and master’s degrees in conducting from the University of Michigan.
Hans Richter, who conducted the premiere of the symphony, proclaimed it to be Brahms’ Eroica. The symphony was well received, more so than his Second Symphony. Although Richard Wagner had died earlier that year, the public feud between Brahms and Wagner had not yet subsided. Wagner enthusiasts tried to interfere with the symphony’s premiere, and the conflict between the two factions nearly brought about a duel.
After each performance, Brahms polished his score further, until it was published in May 1884. His friend the influential music critic Eduard Hanslick said, “Many music lovers will prefer the titanic force of the First Symphony; others, the untroubled charm of the Second, but the Third strikes me as being artistically the most nearly perfect.”
A musical motto consisting of three notes, F–A♭–F, was significant to Brahms. In 1853 his friend Joseph Joachim had taken as his motto “Free, but lonely” (in German Frei aber einsam), and from the notes represented by the first letters of these words, F–A–E, Schumann, Brahms and Dietrich had jointly composed a violin sonata dedicated to Joachim. At the time of the Third Symphony, Brahms was a fifty-year-old bachelor who declared himself to be Frei aber froh, “Free but happy”. His F–A–F motto, and some altered variations of it, can be heard throughout the symphony.
At the beginning of the symphony the motto is the melody of the first three measures, and it is the bass line underlying the main theme in the next three. The motto persists, either boldly or disguised, as the melody or accompaniment throughout the movement. For the third movement – poco allegretto instead of the rapid scherzo standard in 19th-century symphony – Brahms created a unique kind of third movement that is moderate in tempo (poco allegretto) and intensely lyrical in character.[2] The finale is a lyrical, passionate movement, rich in melody that is intensely exploited, altered, and developed. The movement ends with reference to the motto heard in the first movement – one which quotes a motif heard in Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, “Rhenish” in the first movement just before the second theme enters in the recapitulation – then fades away to a quiet ending.
Matthew Pauls returns for a fourth year to the SSO’s Messiah performances – based now out of Winnipeg, Matt is returning home not only to sing but be part of our big musical family!
We took some time to ask him for a few of his thoughts on Handel’s Messiah.
How did you discover you wanted to be a singer?
I have always been surrounded by classical music and singing (my dad is a choral conductor), so it was a natural choice. If I had to choose a specific moment, it would probably be when a man from my church approached me in grade 12 and told me that he wanted to give me voice lessons and help me prepare to sing in the Festival. I sang Schubert’s Du bist die Ruh and after that I was hooked!
What’s your favourite part of Messiah?
My favourite part of Messiah that I don’t get to sing as a soloist is one of the choruses that often gets cut – “Let all the angels of God worship him.”
It’s hard to pick a favourite bass aria, but when the tempo is just right, it’s hard to beat “Why do the nations so furiously rage together?”
When was the first time you saw Messiah?
My first opportunity to be an audience member for a performance of Messiah was in 2003, while I was attending university in Winnipeg. By that time I was quite familiar with the work, as I had listened to a number of recordings and performed “Part One” and a few other selections from Messiah as a chorister.
What do you find challenging about singing Handel’s music?
The coloratura sections are quite challenging. But they are loads of fun once you’ve mastered them. It’s also challenging to make each performance fresh and interesting so that so the audience doesn’t tire of hearing the same piece every year.
What is the best piece of advice you’ve received in your career?
Work for perfection in practice sessions and rehearsals; strive to communicate in performance.
Do you get nervous before your performances? If so, how do you calm your nerves?
As long as I have put in enough practice time and prepared well, I don’t get all that nervous. Excited, yes, but not nervous.
How do you prepare for a performance with an orchestra?
Practice, practice, practice…
If you had to convince someone who’s never seen Handel’s Messiah before to come to your performance, what would you say to convince them?
The last chorus alone are worth the price of admission! “Worthy is the Lamb” (with the final “Amen” section) is absolutely glorious! You have to experience it at least once.
Tenor Spencer McKnight has quickly become an SSO audience favourite having made his debut with us in our 2014 Messiah performances. His effortless coloratura and exceptional diction make him the perfect Messiah tenor.
Fresh off performances of his recital program “Songs of the Great War”, a program outlining the music of the composer soldiers of World War One, Spencer returns to the SSO this season for our Messiah performances and our Bach Magnificat in May.
How did you discover you wanted to be a singer?
I was originally planning on finishing a political science degree and working in the world of politics – however I found that I was increasingly spending more time concentrating on music. I realized that it was my true passion. I haven’t regretted the decision to fully commit myself to music since then!
What’s your favourite part of Messiah?
My favourite aria is But Who May Abide…For He is Like a Refiner’s Fire… and I wish I could sing it! I think the presto section of Refiner’s Fire is one of the most exciting moments in the whole work. Inside I am just a tenor who wants to sing mezzo and alto rep!
Do you remember the first time you saw Messiah?
This may sound awful… but I haven’t seen a full performance of Messiah. When I was young I saw some excerpts of it done by St. Peter’s Chorus. I have only been involved in performances of it in the last few years, however I tend to listen to Messiah all year long. I just never get sick of the music.
What makes Handel’s music attractive for you?
Some of the things that make Handel’s music so much fun can also be what makes it hard. Some of the very exposed moments are both difficult and enjoyable. I think that’s why it’s easy to love singing Handel – you always have to be on your “A” game to sing it well. The long coloratura moments in Messiah can be extremely difficult for the singers as well. That is what makes it so exciting to listen to!
What oratorio have you always wanted to sing?
Growing up listening to a lot of Verdi… I have to say I want to one day sing Verdi’s Requiem. The tenor gets one of the most beautiful arias in it with the Ingemisco.
Is there a tenor who has had a lasting impact on you?
I spent most of my teenage life listening to Jose Carreras recordings. I would come home from school and start up YouTube – and search up anything and everything that Jose Carreras ever sang. I would credit him with teaching me how to sing pianissimo.
What’s the best piece of career advice you’ve ever received?
“If you can think of doing absolutely anything else…do that”. And I can honestly say I can’t imagine doing anything else in the world.
Do you get nervous before taking the stage?
I only get nervous if I don’t feel prepared, otherwise I don’t get that nervous. Being nervous is usually just adrenaline that you can focus on using on your performance
What prep goes in to an oratorio performance?
Preparing for a performance with an orchestra is very different that with just a pianist. You need to know what every instrument is doing underneath you – which will help you feel far more comfortable. If you are prepared you can almost feel as though you are just floating on top of what the orchestra does below you.
Do you have any special warm-ups before a performance?
I have a whole process of warm-ups that I do every day that my voice teacher uses in his teaching. I just do those the day of a performance and a few of them before the performance. The whole group of warm ups takes about 20-30 minutes to do, but once I’ve done them I feel like I can sing almost anything.
What do you tell people who’ve never been to Messiah about experiencing it live?
I would say that 276 years can’t be wrong, things don’t stay this popular for that long if people don’t love them! Come out and see it – I can guarantee you won’t be disappointed. If you are nervous – I would suggest coming to the Sing-Along version. There isn’t a more enjoyable performance for audience and singers in the city!
You can hear Spencer as our tenor soloist for the upcoming Messiah performances on December 15th and 16th.
Friday, January 19th at 12:30pm-1:20pm
