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Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church may just be one of the best venues to hear Baroque music in Kansas City.  Gilded Rococo molding crowns a sanctuary filled with mauve light and penitent angels.  Hearing the Kansas City Collegium Vocale directed by Ryan Board and the Kansas City Baroque Consortium directed by Trilla-Ray Carter in the beautiful and resonant space for the first time, I was struck by the fact that one doesn't need to go to the Boston Early Music Festival to hear rich and rewarding programming.

The concert of early French and Franco-Flemish music was full of delightful surprises.  From the first piece of rarely performed organum of the 12^th century to the encore by Durufle in the 20^th century, the evolution of French choral and instrumental music was well presented.

The men of the KC Collegium Vocale started the concert with Sederunt by Pérotin, their voices cascading down from the organ loft.  The effect was a mesmerizing mix of primitive harmony.  Pre-dating traditional harmony with its rigid voice leading conventions, organum is free and unfettered. Sederunt has a pure steady drone layered with bobbing and weaving voices in the upper register.  It sounded improvisational and virtuosic, the way the melismatic call to prayer does in the Middle East.  What I love most about organum in general is that it is so old it sounds new. 

Fast forward 500 years to Louis-Nicolas Clérambault, a composer who worked in the ostentatious world of King Louis XIV. This was the first concert I had heard in the Midwest that included works by Clérambault and one of which- a Miserere-had never been transcribed before.   I felt like I had hit some sort of Baroque music jackpot at an overly glitzy casino in Monaco.  Suffice to say, Clérambault's music is ornate.

Starting with the incidental music from Le Triomphe d'Iris audiences heard an entertaining variety of instrumentation.  Shifting from strings, to winds and punctuated by percussion, the piece pranced its way through all of the expected dances, the marche, sarabande, menuet, and even included a passepied.  The players in the consortium stood in the customary fashion of Baroque ensembles.  They played with a deep understanding.  The winds and recorders, in particular, were enchanting.

The pièce de résistance, however, was Clérambault's recently transcribed Miserere that few people in the world have ever heard and that this audience had the honor of hearing live.  Literally hot off of the press, UMKC Choral Music Education student, Josh Maize, painstakingly created a version fit for the modern musician. The work is huge, filled with solos, duets, trios, large choruses and all for female voices.  I was completely impressed.  Maize has done a great service for the future of choral music by giving directors all over the world an accessible version of this heretofore unfamiliar Baroque piece.

Meticulously sung by the women of the KC Collegium Vocale with the addition of Jamie Braden, Kathleen Beyers, Melissa Sittig and Kristen Sullivan, the Miserere took a penitent text and overlaid stylish and varied solo material.  In true Baroque fashion, the sopranos represented the holy and the altos embodied the earthly alternating lines as they arched over and around each other.  The ensemble's choral phrases were beautifully balanced and blended.  There are many highly skilled and talented singers in this ensemble. I hope a recording will be available soon. 

They were accompanied by the dulcet tones of another surprising addition to the concert, a beautiful portative organ replete with gilded fleur-de-lis cutouts and sensitively played by organist Rebecca Bell.

The Te Deum in D by Marc-Antoine Charpentier closed the concert on a high note with the full consortium taking the stage.  Timpani, Baroque trumpets, recorders, and harpsichord heightened the concert to a celebratory occasion.  This early hymn of praise brought the instruments and voices together in an excellent tribute to God. 

The encore was an unexpected treat. An a cappella version of the Lord's Prayer set by Maurice Durufle.  It brought the well-programmed concert to a bittersweet end.  Director Ryan Board has created an early music ensemble for Kansas City that filled a void.  He gave local singers and players a chance to participate in music making of the highest order.  It is with great sadness that our city will lose this up-and-coming conductor to Pepperdine University where he and his talented wife, Ida Nicolosi will begin a new chapter of their lives.   Hopefully, a replacement will emerge to carry on.

The KC Baroque Consortium will certainly continue to forge new ground for the audiences in the metro.  Audiences can look forward to attending the Jewell Early Music Summer Festival (JEMS Fest) July 30-August 6^th at William Jewell College in Liberty MO.

REVIEW:
A Concert of French and Franco-Flemish Music
 KC Collegium Vocale and the Kansas City Baroque Consortium
Directed by Ryan Board and Trilla-Ray Carter
Sunday May 9, 2010
Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church
2552 Gillham Rd., Kansas City, MO
www.kccollegiumvocale.com

Cover photo: Dr. Ryan Board.

By Megan Browne Helm

Classical, Vocal and Theatre Contributor

Megan Browne Helm grew up singing, dancing and acting.  Inspired by Emma Kirkby as a high school student in St. Louis she went on to study voice and sing with the Collegium Musicum at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio where she also had a radio show of contemporary classical music on WOBC.  At the University of Kansas she had the pleasure of working with former Kings’ Singer, Simon Carrington in his Collegium Musicum and Oread consort. Years later, she was a choral fellow at the Yale School of Music’s  Norfolk Chamber Music Festival.  She is currently singing with the Kansas City Symphony Chorus under the direction of Charles Bruffy. 

 As a freelance music and culture writer her work can be found on KCMetropolis.org, presentmagazine.com, the Lawrence Journal World, Shawnee Magazine, Leawood Lifestyle Magazine and KC Parent.  She was one of 26 journalists in the country chosen as a NEA Institute Fellow for Classical Music and Opera at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 

Her current interest is how classical music remains relevant through active collaborations with artists in different fields, including science.  She also sees a connection between classical music, travel and food as a way to engage all of the senses in a 360 degree cultural experience.  She blogs at raworganum.wordpress.com.