Concert is set for Saturday, February 22nd at South Main Baptist Church
WHAT: The Grammy® Award-winning Houston Chamber Choir presents Love Songs & Sonnets for its post-Valentine’s offering, which will be conducted by Dr. Betsy Cook Weber, Artistic Director Designate. How do I love thee? Composers have counted the ways through the centuries. The concert is set for Saturday, Feb. 22 at 7:30 p.m. at South Main Baptist Church, known for its stellar acoustics.
The Program:
The Houston Chamber Choir will take the listener on a romantic journey that begins in the Renaissance period, opening with two searing Monteverdi madrigals, Si ch’io vorrei morire and Quel augellin che canta. Meant to be sung without a conductor, these wonderful pieces are musically complex and offer vivid imagery of their highly romantic texts.
Next, are two important pieces from the Romantic period — with the first being Brahms’ Vier Gesänge for treble choir, horns, and harp, a staple of the repertoire. The initial compositional motivation for Op. 17 was the Hamburg Frauenchor, a group of women who rehearsed under Brahms’ direction in a private home on Monday mornings.
The second is Franz Schubert’s Ständchen for tenor-bass chorus. Ständchen features a beautiful mezzo-soprano solo, a piano accompaniment evocative of tiptoeing (think Gilbert and Sullivan), and wonderful homophonic male singing punctuated with moments of imitation.
Next up is Gustav Holst, as the Choir offers two notable arrangements from his Six Choral Folksongs, Op. H. 136. Somehow Holst retains the simplicity of the original tune’s modalities, irregular phrase lengths, and expressive texts, but all within the context of 20th-century composition. There was a tree is simple in construction — canonic with ostinato accompaniment. I love my love is largely homophonic. Its text describes two lovers separated by disapproving parents who are finally reunited in the end.
The two languid, 21st-century settings from Songs of Solomon, His Left Hand and I am the rose of Sharon, are similar in tonality and affect. Written respectively by Swedish composer, Sven-David Sandström and Swiss/Italian composer, Ivo Antognini, the Scriptural texts explore the ways in which a lover’s right and left hands are used to learn and embrace.
For a jazzy spin we turn to British jazz pianist George Shearing who wrote seven Songs and Sonnets on various Shakespearean texts. One is quickly drawn into the way in which Shearing cleverly and skillfully marries the two. By the end of the set, the union feels completely natural.
Finally, the choir closes with an example of the uniquely American genre, barbershop singing, with a clever arrangement of the partner song Lida Rose/Will I Ever Tell You from Music Man.
The Houston Chamber Choir invites guests to a special “after-prom” at the conclusion of the concert for additional music, along with refreshments and fun.
WHO: The Houston Chamber Choir is made up of 24 professional musicians of diverse backgrounds who hail from some of the finest music programs in the country. Members of the Choir have performed professionally across the United States and internationally, singing in festivals, operas, concerts, church choirs and in musical theater.
WHEN: Saturday, February 22, 2025, at 7:30 p.m. CT
WHERE: South Main Baptist Church, 4100 Main St., Houston, TX 77002
COST: $10 – $45 for single tickets. Go to www.houstonchamberchoir.org/2024-2025-season/love-songs-and-sonnets to purchase.
MORE: There is ample free parking in the church lot.
Check out our website at HoustonChamberChoir.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Link to photos here
Photo credit: Jeff Grass Photography
About Houston Chamber Choir
Led by Founder and Artistic Director Robert Simpson and Artistic Director Designate Dr. Betsy Cook Weber, the Houston Chamber Choir is a Grammy® Award-winning ensemble of 24 professional musicians selected from the finest choral artists in our region. “One of the jewels of the city’s cultural scene” (Houston Chronicle), the Houston Chamber Choir has brought Houston an array of choral works for 30 years ranging from early music and Baroque masterpieces, including the city’s first period instrument performance of Bach’s B Minor Mass, to the rarely heard Third Sacred Concert by Duke Ellington, and performances and premieres of works by today’s leading composers, many with Houston ties — David Ashley White, Christopher Theofanidis, Dominick DiOrio, J. Todd Frazier, Mark Buller, Karim Al-Zand, Pierre Jalbert, Marcus Maroney, and Daniel Knaggs.
The Houston Chamber Choir’s awards include Chorus America’s Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the American Prize. They were one of 24 international ensembles selected to appear at the 2020 World Symposium on Choral Music in New Zealand. The Houston Chamber Choir has appeared at national conventions of the American Choral Directors Association, the American Guild of Organists, and Chorus America. Tours have taken them to Mexico, Wales, and the Northeastern United States where they performed at Trinity Church, Wall Street in New York City, and Yale University at the invitation of the Institute of Sacred Music.
The Choir’s recording of the complete choral works of French composer Maurice Duruflé was awarded the 2019 Grammy® Award for Best Choral Performance. In January 2022, Signum Classics released its newest recording of compositions by acclaimed British composer Bob Chilcott. For this recording, the Houston Chamber Choir is joined by the Treble Choir of Houston directed by Marianna Parnas-Simpson. The title work, Circlesong, is a 13-movement composition for two choirs, two pianos, and percussion based on indigenous poetry of North America.