Toledo Choral Society to fill church with song

Napierala closes first season as music director, conductor

6/5/2013

This Sunday’s concert by the Toledo Choral Society winds up the venerable group’s season, but it’s also the conclusion of the first year as music director and conductor for Richard Napierala II.

Titled Journey to Luminous Glory, the performance is to start at 3 p.m. in Sylvania First United Church, 7000 Erie St., Sylvania. The highlight of the program will be the first local performance of Ola Gjeilo’s big 2008 work, Sunrise Mass, for chorus and string orchestra.

Dense and multi-textured, the work represents the leading edge of choral writing by an emerging light. Gjeilo (Yay-lo), born in 1978 in Norway, studied at the Juilliard School in New York City, where he now lives and composes, publishing through Walton Music. His music combines the lyricism of John Rutter with the harmonic complexity and luminous minimalism of Estonian composer Arvo Part and American composer Morten Lauridsen.

Instrumentalists from the Toledo Symphony will provide accompaniment, along with pianist Phillip Clark, also completing his first season with the Toledo Choral Society.

Rounding out the concert will be English composer Rutter’s 1974 now-classic work, Gloria, with brass, percussion, and organ.

Tickets are $15 at the door, with discounted rates for groups of 10 or more. Information: visit www.toledochoralsociety.org.

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The Adrian Symphony Orchestra invites all to sashay into summer during a pops concert, Legends of Swing, at 8 p.m. Friday in Dawson Auditorium on the Adrian College campus.

Nostalgia will rule as music by greats from the 1930s and 1940s — Duke Ellington, Artie Shaw, the Dorseys, Harry James, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Gene Krupa and more — are paid their due.

Music director John Thomas Dodson will conduct this tribute concert. “This end of the season has become an ASO tradition,” says Dodson. “We bring together some of the finest jazz musicians from the region and this is a program for them to show themselves off to you.”

A pre-concert warm-up party on the Dawson grounds will start at 7 p.m. for ticket holders. Tickets are $10 to $25 at 517-264-3121 or www.adriansymphony.org.

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It’s season 20 for the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, to launch Saturday in Detroit and environs. The performance is the first of 13 subscription concerts in smaller performing spaces in the Detroit area, plus eight more programs in venues from the Detroit Institute of Arts to Kerrytown Concert in Ann Arbor and a Windsor, Ontario, art gallery.

The two-week festival is the result of a 1994 collaboration by Catholic, Jewish, and Protestant religious groups and the Detroit Chamber Winds and Strings.

Performers are stars in the national and international chamber music world and include pianists Jeremy Denk, Jonathan Biss, James Tocco, and Pei-Shan Lee; string players Ani and Ida Kavafian, Miriam Fried, Paul Biss, and Paul Katz, the St. Lawrence Quartet, the Miro Quartet, vocalists Lauren Skuce and Paul Gross, the Claremont Trio, City of Tomorrow, and eighth blackbird.

The opening night concert at 8 p.m. in the Seligman Performing Arts Center of Detroit Country Day School, 22305 W. Thirteen Mile Rd. in Beverly Hills, will offer Beethoven’s Piano Quartet in E-Flat Major, a commissioned work by Keeril Makan titled Return, and Dvorak’s Piano Quintet No. 2 in A major.

Music by Britten, Bartok, and Beethoven is on the program for the 3 p.m. concert Sunday in the Grosse Pointe Unitarian Church. Two concerts, both at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday at Temple Beth El, 1419 W. Warren Ave., Bloomfield Hills, will be highlighted by the world premiere of Now of All Times, by Hannah Lash, plus the Dvorak String Quartet in E-Flat Major, and Mendelssohn’s String Octet in E-Flat Major.

A concert June 13 will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Kirk in the Hills Presbyterian Church, and will include music by Boccherini and Brahms plus the world premiere of a work by Paul Wiancko. The program will be repeated at 10:45 a.m. on June 14.

Tickets can be purchased in series or single, with costs from $10-$40 for single concerts. For tickets and a complete schedule call 248-559-2097 or visit http://greatlakeschambermusic.org.

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The Arbor Opera Theater announces its 14th season starting with The Marriage of Figaro at 7:30 p.m. June 13-15 and June 16 at 2 p.m. in the Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre of the University of Michigan League, North University Ave.

Preceding opening night events include a studio artist opera workshop performance at 8 p.m. Saturday and, at 3 p.m. Sunday, a lecture on the beloved opera by Richard LeSueur.

Tickets for the performances are $15-$50 at 734-763-8587 or at www.arboropera.com.

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Summer Sings have started at the University of Toledo, but for even more of the special camaraderie of reading major choral works with new and old friends, there’s the University Musical Society Choral Union’s own version, in Ann Arbor. This will be the 20th season for the popular activity, which this year takes place at the Walgreen Drama Center, 1226 Murfin, on the U of M North Campus.

Sings begin at 7 p.m., with registration open at 6:30 p.m. Both sessions cost $5 at the door, which includes the loan of musical scores and refreshments. (Personal copies of scores also may be brought for use.)

The first of the two sings is slated for July 8, when Beth Everett, director of choral activities at Eastern Michigan University, will lead John Rutter’s Magnificat. On July 22, Kimcherie Lloyd, director of orchestral studies at the University of Louisville, will conduct the Haydn Creation Mass.

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