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Chorus Angelicas "On the Road Again"
On Saturday, March 29 at 7 p.m. at Trinity Episcopal Church, 220 Prospect St. in Torrington, Joyful Noise will present the internationally acclaimed children's choir Chorus Angelicus in "On the Road Again," a preview concert and fundraiser for its June 2003 Pacific Northwest Tour.
Chorus Angelicus has impressed audiences with the best of choral music, both sacred and secular, since its founding in September 1991 by Paul Halley. Based in Torrington, the ensemble comprises fifty boys and girls, ages 8-16, who hail from towns throughout southwestern New England to rehearse and perform an annual season of 25 concerts. In past years the choir has toured the East Coast from Key West, Florida to Halifax, Nova Scotia. This June, after a four-year hiatus in touring, the group will tour the Pacific Northwest, performing in cathedrals from Vancouver, British Columbia to Portland, Oregon.
Touring is an important element in the growth and constant training of the choir. Director Paul Halley explains that, because of the sheer number of live performances required, the choristers on tour begin "singing as an ensemble at a level they haven't before. The younger people on tour hear this and it becomes their standard, the new level they have to achieve in all their singing."
Meagan Olivieri, 16 years old and one of the two choristers who has been on tour before, says that she is "extremely excited" about the upcoming tour. Thinking back to the last touring experience four years ago, she says, "Personally, I gained a strong relationship with everyone, and with Paul, too. You just learn more on tour, I think." Rebecca Palmer, 14 years old and head chorister, has never been on tour, but she is looking forward to taking a trip with the present group. "We're a good group," she says, "a close group. Everybody seems to get along really well." Jonathan Rogers, also 14 and assistant head chorister, went on a Florida tour years ago, not as a chorister, but as the son of a staff member. This tour will be a different experience altogether. He, like Rebecca, is eager to "see what touring is like with the new group. Plus, I've never been out West before!"
Julie Bickford, 22, an alumna of Chorus Angelicus and currently the director of the Chorus Angelicus Junior Choir, remembers the first tour she went on, a tour to Nova Scotia in 1995. She says, "It was fabulous. I remember us singing to Beatles songs in the van, and I remember being absolutely struck by the beauty of Annapolis Royal," the historic Nova Scotia town that the choir used as its base throughout the tour. "We were split up to stay with different people, and I remember at first I was disappointed because the three other choir members I was billeted with were younger than me. But the four of us bonded." She feels that the bonding that goes on socially is inseparable from the tightening of the group musically. "By the end of the tour you've been singing, living, sleeping, and driving with these people, and everyone just breathes as one. The level of expectation goes up for the choir."
The group's tour repertoire this year features sacred works by Britten, Poulenc and Verdi in addition to a vibrant collection of folk songs from around the world sung in languages such as Serbian, Lithuanian, Portuguese and Xhosa. When asked what they think of singing in foreign languages, the choristers respond enthusiastically. Masie, 10 years old, says, "It's easier to tune than with English, because you pay more attention." Masie thinks German is the hardest language to sing in. Henk, also 10 years old, thinks Russian is the hardest. But both have been singing in foreign languages for four or five years, having come into Chorus Angelicus from the Chorus Angelicus Training Choir, directed by Karen Sovak. Sovak has some children in the Training Choir who are so young they cannot read yet. But they are performing works in Polish, Korean and Maori, a New Zealand tribal language. Sovak says, "They're picking it up by rote and pretending they're reading it. They love it. It may be even a little more natural for these younger kids to sing in foreign languages than the older kids, since it's less foreign for them. They just learned how to speak English a few years ago!"
In the middle of a 25-concert season spanning a huge range of musical programs in a huge range of venues, the March 29 concert at Trinity Episcopal Church provides a rare opportunity to see Chorus Angelicus perform on their home turf without orchestra, brass ensemble, adult chamber choir, jazz band, pipe band, narrator or dancers. For tickets and more info, including how to adopt a traveling chorister with a tax-deductible donation, call the Joyful Noise office (toll-free) at 888-788-8882.
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