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Here is a recipe for success in programming a holiday concert: take a series of plainchant holiday tunes, perform them as they have been interpreted by composers over the ages (progressing from older to newer) and throw in a few interspersed pieces of Christmas-themed organ music by one of Kansas City’s supreme organists. Mix well and serve to an enthusiastic audience.

Terri Teal of the Fine Arts Chorale has this recipe honed, and used it with brilliant effect in the December 10 concert of the Chorale, called “Celebrate the Holidays with Jan Kraybill.” Featuring Kraybill, the fine organist who was profiled in the last issue of KCMetropolis.org, the concert was one of the most thoroughly enjoyable holiday outings in this reviewer’s experience. The concert successfully avoided the saccharine sweetness of all too many Christmas season outings which turn into familiar songfests and which underutilize the more sophisticated talents of their performers.

In other words, this was one holiday concert that didn’t compromise the ensemble’s standards, but displayed a brilliant and sensitive musicality, presented rarely heard but transcendently beautiful selections, and still offered enough of a toe-tapping good time to please any audience member.

Kraybill, at the fine Visitation Church pipe organ, played a series of organ works, mostly of the theme and variations type, by composers ranging from Bach to Brahms to contemporary composer Craig Phillips. Then, between the organ selections, Teal’s 23-voiced unaccompanied vocal ensemble performed a series of interrelated numbers, each series based upon a popular Christmas music tune, exploring the theme as arranged by composers whose birth dates ranged from 1550 to 1972.

The concert opened with Kraybill performing Toccata on ‘Antioch,’ a contemporary take on an old musical theme, whose upbeat fanfare style was a perfect beginning for the occasion.

The Fine Arts Chorale followed with Poulenc’s magical O magnum mysterium, a modern holiday classic beautifully performed. The ensemble took the difficult tonalities in perfect stride and with impressive intonation (not easy in this piece).

Kraybill followed with an impressively rendered “Noël” (an organ composition originally intended as filler in Renaissance church services, consisting of variations on familiar Christmas themes) by eighteenth-century French organist and composer Jean-François Dandrieu.

Next, the Chorale performed a number of settings of the familiar “O Come, O Come Emanuel,” beginning with an ancient plainsong and continuing to two-part and then four-part settings, ending with the work as arranged by twentieth-century Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály and contemporary composer Evelyn Simpson Curenton. The gradual blending of the voices and build-up from ancient to modern music was an impressive lesson in music history as well as a vivid demonstration of the ensemble’s centuries-spanning musicality.

The ensemble next performed modern composer Morten Lauridsen’s contemporary setting of the “O magnum mysterium” text, whose transcendent harmonies shone in a finely nuanced performance with pristine vocal balance.

Kraybill performed another “Noël” by Claude-Bénigne Balbastre, and then the Chorale repeated its old-to-new succession of pieces with “Resonet in Laudibus,” the joyful waltz-like tune known to most as “Joseph Dearest, Joseph Mine,” a lullaby sung by Mary. One variation, by contemporary composer Robert Lind, was played on the organ, but the others were performed by the Chorale, including the climatic, concluding number by Chester Alwes, presenting the tune with a syncopated beat and some mixed meters which captured surprising charm.

The program’s second half began with a splendid performance by Kraybill of Bach’s canonic variations on “Von Himmel Hoch,” and then with the Chorale’s ancient-to-modern progression of arrangements based on “Lo, How a Rose.” This series included a beautiful sixteenth-century arrangement by Michael Praetorius and also an unusual version by Craig Hella Johnson which combined the Christmas hymn with “The Rose,” a piece made popular in the 1960s by Janis Joplin. Somehow, it worked.

After an elegant rendition by Kraybill of Johannes Brahms’ choral prelude on the same theme, the concert ended with the members of the Chorale ascending to the Visitation Church choir loft high above the audience’s heads, to sing a series of delightful and mostly modern versions of Christmas classics, including John Rutter’s What Sweeter Music, Michael Head’s The Oxen (previously unknown to this reviewer, but charming) and Friedrich Zipp’s Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying.

The Fine Arts Chorale’s impressed with its careful preparation and finely nuanced performance, although in the robust sections a bit more heft from the chorus would be welcome: the combined dynamic range on the louder end seemed to stop at mezzo forte.

Jan Kraybill, as always, was superb at the organ and confirmed her status as one of the jewels of the Kansas City music scene. The written program included notes by Teal which were among the best seen in a local concert program.

Amidst the hymnfests and perhaps overly done repetitions of familiar works which are ever present during the Christmas season, this concert represented one of the most elegant and carefully prepared programs this reviewer has heard. Hats off to Teal, Kraybill, and the dedicated members of the Fine Arts Chorale.

REVIEW:
Fine Arts Chorale
Celebrate the Holidays with Jan Kraybill
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Visitation Church
5141 Main Street  Kansas City, MO 64113
For more information visit http://www.fineartschoralekc.org 

Top Photo: Terri Teal and the members of the Fine Arts Chorale in Helzberg Hall

By Don Dagenais

City Classics Music and Dance Columnist; Classical Contributor

A lifelong classical music fan, Don Dagenais is a frequent preview speaker for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City and has taught classical music and opera courses at several Kansas City venues. He has served on the boards of directors of a number of performing arts organizations including the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, the Lyric Opera Guild, UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance, Opera Volunteers International, the Civic Opera Theater of Kansas City, Inspiration Point Fine Arts Colony, Octarium, and the Friends of the Symphony.  He has been the past president of most of these organizations and is current the president of the Friends of the Symphony. 

Dagenais co-authored a history of the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, published on the occasion of its 50th anniversary (2007) and has written books on the histories of both the Lyric Opera Guild and Opera Volunteers International, as well as an introductory book for opera novices (Your Passport to the Opera).  He has received several local and national awards for outstanding volunteer work for the arts, including a lifetime achievement award from The Coterie Theatre in 2000, the Kansas City Musical Club's annual award in 2001, a Partners in Excellence Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2002, a Bravo Award from Opera Volunteers International in 2004 and a community service award from the Daughter of the American Revolution in 2008 honoring him for his community service to the arts.

In addition to his music interests, Don is president of the board of directors for the Metropolitan Ensemble Theater and has served on the boards of The Coterie Theatre and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, serving as president of each organization.  He publishes newsletters for seven arts organizations.  When not involved in the performing arts, Don is a senior real estate attorney with Lathrop & Gage LLP in Kansas City, Missouri, where he has practiced law since 1976 after graduating from the Cornell Law School.