DaCapo Chamber Choir’s “Evening Song”
I went to the DaCapo Chamber Choir’s performance titled “Evening Song,” the start of their 15th anniversary season. I didn’t know any of the pieces, but the choir was splendid as always.
There were a couple of pieces for solo clarinet:
- Rhapsody — Willson Osborne
- “Prelude” from Ten a Penny Pieces — Clifford Crawley
One piece for clarinet and piano:
- PatchWork 1 — Leonard Enns
And several pieces for the choir, sometimes with clarinet and piano:
- Missa Pax — Timothy Corlis
- When You are Old — Patrick Murray
- Robert Ingari
- Chanson d’autumne
- Soleils couchants
- How Sweet and Fair — Stephen Chatman
- Go, Lovely Rose
- To Daffodils
- This Evening of Our Life — Matthew Emery
The choir repeated the last piece, “This Evening of Our Life” (which was a premiere), as an encore.
Len Enns conducted the choir, Catherine Robertson played piano, and Peter Shackleton played clarinet.
One of the composers, Patrick Murray, was in the audience. Another one of the composers, Tim Corlis, is a former member of the choir.
There was one part where I thought the clarinet was too loud compared to the choir — I think only the women were singing at the time — but other than that the combination worked very well.
The choir often sings in languages other than English — Latin and French were represented in this concert — but a translation is provided in the program. The choir will make you believe that unusual harmonies are OK.
I previously reviewed DaCapo’s concert “Leonardo Dreaming.”