Last night I rediscovered my love of men’s choral music. That’s an odd thing to write, given that I resumed singing men’s choral music nearly a year ago. But we performed a joint concert last night with the Golden Gate Men’s Chorus, a gay men’s chorus visiting from San Francisco, and they absolutely blew me away — which is no wonder, as the group is led by Joseph Jennings, who is also the music director of Chanticleer.
Perhaps music just sounds better when you’re listening to it instead of performing it. But it wasn’t just that; they really sounded superb, and they sang a wide-ranging program. The highlight for me was a traditional Georgian working song from Georgia (the country, not the U.S. state), listed on the program as Naduri. A smaller ensemble performed Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus, one of my favorite Renaissance motets, and it reminded me how much I love singing Renaisasnce music. Our most recent concert consisted entirely of American choral music, which is nice, but Renaissance polyphony engages the left and right sides of my brain like no other music can.
The concert concluded with a joint performance of the Biebl Ave Maria, which is extremely special to me because it’s one of the signature pieces of the Virginia Glee Club, with which I sang in college and law school. The piece consists of two sets of choral parts that complement each other — one set sung by a larger chorus, and the other sung by a smaller chorus. The San Francisco guys sang the main choral part from the stage, and we sang the other part from the balcony. It came off really well.
Now that I’m all inspired, I’m going to have to listen to my Glee Club CDs sometime soon.