For a new work by Eric Banks
The national service organization Chorus America has announced its 2010 awards and Conspirare is on the list. The Austin-based professional choral organization will receive the Dale Warland Singers Commission Award to support the commission of a new work by Seattle composer Eric Banks. Previous winners of the Warland award, now in its third year, were Anima and Chanticleer. The Conspirare award and its cash prize will be presented June 18 at Chorus America’s annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia.
Ann Meier Baker, President and CEO of Chorus America, said: “Chorus America and our partner, the American Composers Forum, are delighted to present this award to Conspirare. Not only will the award directly support the planned commission from the talented composer Eric Banks, but it also recognizes Conspirare’s commitment to supporting living composers through performing their music. It is a pleasure to watch as choruses like Conspirare carry forward this important standard, one of the greatest legacies of the Dale Warland Singers for which the award is named.”
Banks will compose a work to be entitled This delicate universe, in the form of an a cappella cycle for 16-part chamber chorus, based on five poems by the Greek-Egyptian poet Constantine Cavafy (1863-1933). The piece will be performed in both Greek and English. Many of Banks’s choral compositions are macaronic, that is, composed in multiple languages. He believes that there is particular power when one intones poetry in its original language, and he also recognizes the great value in hearing translations of these texts sung in performance.
Eric Banks said: “My plan for This delicate universe is to set Cavafy’s strophes of Greek text in the background of the choral texture, and to declaim the English translations in the foreground, by a combination of soloists and small ensembles. I will utilize the full potential of Conspirare’s forces to create a choral soundscape that employs both the linguistic variety of modern Greek and the musical vocabulary of maqqam – the scalar system known throughout the Arab world for its ornaments and microtonal variation. I hope that by coupling such diverse sounds – Greek syllables and Arabic melodies – with my English translations, that Cavafy’s work will reach a wider appreciation with American audiences.”
Conspirare expects to premiere the new work within two years.
For more about the Chorus America awards, click here. For more about composer Eric Banks, click here.
We are sorry, but due to unavoidable scheduling changes in our season, we are cancelling the “Choral Conversation” at Chez Zee on Monday, April 26, 2010. At the current time, we are not planning to re-schedule this event.
Thank you for your understanding.
Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2010 > January > 11 > Entry
Monday, January 11, 2010, 10:07 AM
There’s a reason Richard Strauss’ Deutsche Motette isn’t frequently performed. Though only about 20 minutes in length, it’s a sprawling late romantic symphony for voices, dense in its musical imagery and staggering in its complexity with some 16 vocal parts.
Leave it to Austin choir Conspirare — which just received its fifth Grammy nomination — to make stunning work of Strauss’ stunning Motette, the marquee piece of a concert Saturday night at the acoustically fine St. Martin’s Lutheran Church.
Rich in impressionistic nuance, the Motette awes with its spectacle — particularly its astonishing harmonic shifts. And Conspirare’s genius at singing as one voice while also allowing enough space of each singer’s own voice to shine through made for much clarity and emotional resonance.
If there was a theme to the program selected by Conspirare founder and artistic director Craig Hella Johnson, perhaps it was musical complexity.
Before unleashing the Strauss, Johnson and the choir pulled off Bach’s motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied with aplomb, deftly maneuvering through Bach’s rich and intriguing wave of counterpoint.
Balancing the mighty weight of the Bach and the Strauss were a selection of Brahms’ romantic Leibeslieder Waltzes, stylishly sung. And as a delightful detour, Johnson threw in ‘My Little Green Cactus,’ a jumpy 1920s tune sung in the a capella style of the Comedian Harmonists, an all-male German close harmony ensemble that was one of the more successful pre-World War II groups. As cute as it was, the song really just re-enforced what the rest of the program made clear: That Conspirare continually demonstrate superb control and dexterity as a choir, no matter the repertoire.
Later this month, Johnson and Conspirare will go up for their fifth Grammy nomination, this time for Best Classical Crossover Album, competing against the likes of Yo Yo Ma. That an Austin non-profit musical organization even has the chops to even compete against a classical music icon —and commercial juggernaut — like Ma is impressive. Then again, Conspirare has the voice that roars, sublimely.
On June 11th, Craig was awarded the 2009 Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal from Chorus America! More information on the award can be found by clicking here.
” Spotlight on Innovation: A Different Kind of Chorus” by Kelsey Menehan, photography by Scott van Osdol, The Voice of Chorus America (Washington, DC), vol 32, no. 3, Spring 2009, pp. 15-24. Includes “A Conversation with Craig Hella Johnson” and statements by singers.
Click here to see the article in full.
