Choral Music

As war and killing proliferate, so do the number of musical works written to protest and mourn that truth. It's a relatively modern trend; Britten's War Requiem began an era in which composers spoke out - and mainly through choral music. The Mendelssohn Club sang out against death and wars Saturday in an adventurous program at Girard College. Alan Harler conducted the chorus, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and the Bel Canto and Motet youth choruses in local premieres of James Primosch's Fire-Memory, River-Memory and John Adams' On the Transmigration of Souls.

Singing City, which last night sang at Center City's First Baptist Church, illustrated that there is strength in numbers. Moreover, they showed that something mysteriously synergistic happens when 100 people gather with a common purpose; they create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This principle is what J.S. Bach was counting on when he created works such as Jesu, meine Freude: Motet III (BWV 227). Aspects of the vocal writing are so challenging that a competent reading by an amateur group, in his time or ours, seems unlikely.

Just because Philadelphia choral organizations are laudably focused on new music more than ever these days doesn't mean their concerts are anything alike. Sunday's Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia's Center City concert had new works by Robert Moran that settled in comfortably with Bruckner. On Saturday, the Crossing's concert at Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill was more political than poetic, articulated in a fashion far more removed than the 13 geographic miles separating the two. The Crossing's program betrayed no allegiances to any political party, but director Donald Nally was definitely addressing eternal issues of class struggle, most especially in David Lang's Statement to the Court , premiered by the Crossing in 2010 but reprised Saturday in a far better performance.

La Festa Della Repubblica Italiana, the national holiday of Italy, was celebrated with a festival yesterday at Penn's Landing. Festivalgoers took in traditional food, choral music, theater and folk dancing. Jaclyn DiGabriale, 4, tried the dancing, with her father, Bernie, to the music of the Italian American String Band.

Four world premieres, four works by Philadelphia composers and an emphasis on French works, choral music and Mozart concertos highlight the 1989-90 Philadelphia Orchestra season. Music director Riccardo Muti announced the Orchestra's 90th season yesterday in his Academy of Music dressing room. Muti will conduct 10 of the 30 subscription weeks, plus two weeks of a three-week American tour next spring. He said he was slightly curtailing his time in Philadelphia and at La Scala in Milan due to an already hectic schedule.

A Collingswood High School teacher was arrested Sunday and charged with possession of 10 bags of cocaine and possession with intent to distribute, police said. David Bryant, 31, was stopped by Officer Michael Dougherty after making an improper right turn at a red light at Mount Ephraim and Fairview Avenues Sunday afternoon, police said. He also was charged with three motor vehicle violations, according to police. Police said they believe Bryant bought the cocaine for his own consumption.

Two outstanding programs of choral music are on tap for this weekend, both offering exquisite compositions. The Philadelphia Orchestra concert at 8 p.m. tomorrow and Tuesday at the Academy of Music features major choral works of deep spiritual dimension under the baton of Riccardo Muti. The ones closest to Muti's heart are the four independent works by Verdi now performed together as the Four Sacred Pieces. Verdi finally allowed performance of the dramatic "Stabat Mater," "Laud to the Virgin" (the only one with an Italian text, from Dante's "Paradiso")

Sephardic Jewish music more than a century old, some of it not heard here for nearly 100 years, will be performed Sunday afternoon at Congregation Mikveh Israel in Old City. Richard Marcus will narrate and direct the choral music, which concludes a weekend celebration of the 100th anniversary of the installation of the late Leon H. Elmaleh as minister of Mikveh Israel. Sephardic music differs from that heard in Ashkenazic, or Eastern European, synagogues. "The most obvious difference is that of mode," Marcus said.

The Right Rev. Allen Bartlett, a retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, will be among those honored Saturday at an event hosted by the Women's Sacred Music Project. The occasion is the 10th Anniversary of "Voices Found: Women in the Church's Song," a hymnal supplement that focuses on women-centered spiritual music. The publication is now officially part of the Episcopal Church's liturgical materials and is also used by other denominations. Bartlett and the Rev. Paulette Schiff, retired associate rector of St. Marks Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, will be the first recipients of an award created by the music project, which aims to promote the creation and performance of music by, for and about women.

The Right Rev. Allen Bartlett, a retired Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, will be among those honored Saturday at an event hosted by the Women's Sacred Music Project. The occasion is the 10th Anniversary of "Voices Found: Women in the Church's Song," a hymnal supplement that focuses on women-centered spiritual music. The publication is now officially part of the Episcopal Church's liturgical materials and is also used by other denominations. Bartlett and the Rev. Paulette Schiff, retired associate rector of St. Marks Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, will be the first recipients of an award created by the music project, which aims to promote the creation and performance of music by, for and about women.

When composer Eric Whitacre launched his East Coast tour Monday, he received such a rock-star greeting that he wondered whether he should have a stack of amplifiers and a mean-sounding Stratocaster. "I felt a little guilty," he says. "I wanted to have something to meet that young energy. " Instead, he conducted 30-plus singers in Monteverdi and his own trademark ethereal tones, which many listeners drove considerable distances to hear at the Strathmore concert hall near Baltimore.

  W. Ernest Wells, 86, a retired choirmaster and organist who enjoyed entertaining friends by playing show tunes and hymns on his Baldwin upright piano, died Tuesday, Jan. 1, at the Gwynedd Square Nursing Center in Lansdale. His daughter, Christina Jane Lennox, said her father had been in poor health since suffering a stroke two years ago. He had most recently lived in Ambler. In pursuit of his lifelong love of music, Mr. Wells left his home in Birmingham, Ala., when he was 17 to attend Westminster Choir College in Princeton, where he earned a degree in choral music.

Joy is the destination emotion this time of year. And the pressure to get there is enormous, which is where Christmas concerts come into our lives. Two weekend programs intelligently attacked the problem from opposite directions: Piffaro the Renaissance Band took the left-brain route Saturday at the Trinity Center in a Germanic program with fine program notes and lighting levels that allowed you follow translations from Latin and German when guest soprano Laura Heimes was singing. On Friday, the Crossing choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill was a right-brain concert full of mystery and candlelit atmosphere.

Great music often takes on shades of its surroundings, which is why at least two weekend concerts seemed to be issuing veiled warnings about the impending storm. The end of the world was the topic of the Buxtehude Consort's program Saturday at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Chestnut Hill. No mentions of hurricanes were heard, but "Heaven, earth, air and sea prepare themselves to exact revenge" was how G.F. Telemann (1681-1767) began one of his cantatas, and you know he wasn't just riffing on Weather Channel hysteria.

Just because Philadelphia choral organizations are laudably focused on new music more than ever these days doesn't mean their concerts are anything alike. Sunday's Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia's Center City concert had new works by Robert Moran that settled in comfortably with Bruckner. On Saturday, the Crossing's concert at Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill was more political than poetic, articulated in a fashion far more removed than the 13 geographic miles separating the two. The Crossing's program betrayed no allegiances to any political party, but director Donald Nally was definitely addressing eternal issues of class struggle, most especially in David Lang's Statement to the Court , premiered by the Crossing in 2010 but reprised Saturday in a far better performance.

Robert J. Reilley Sr., 74, of Jeffersonville, choir director at Paoli Presbyterian Church from 1974 to 2008, died Thursday, June 14, of lung cancer at Montgomery Hospital. In 1968, Mr. Reilley and his wife, Gail, founded the Mastersingers, a chorus that he last conducted May 5 in a concert at Paoli Presbyterian. While tending those two sidelines, Mr. Reilley was a career public-school music teacher. From 1964 to 1967, he taught music and was the choral director at Huntingdon Junior High School in the Abington School District, his wife said.

It took decades for Albert Barnes to amass his eclectic collection and years of negotiations to get it into a new home on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, so its momentous opening weekend will be celebrated with 56 consecutive hours of free events. "This really is a celebration, and we want to do as much as possible, since public programming is clearly new to the Barnes," said Kathleen Greene, the public programming manager. Most of the timed tickets for the opening weekend sold out weeks ago, but the Barnes is holding back a few tickets a day for walk-up visitors, plus whatever may be turned back by those who bought them earlier.

A high school choir from Camden is rehearsing for a European competition. Although they'll sing a selection in Latin, language is hardly the biggest barrier for 25 students from Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy who want to attend the Young Prague festival. Getting to the Czech Republic by March 27 is the major challenge. "We have to raise $45,000, and we're not halfway there yet," says Suzzette Ortiz, conductor of the concert choir. The school's gospel choir and string section will compete as well.