TRANSCRIPT
HELEN LYONS: The Burlington Choral Society celebrates a milestone anniversary this Saturday (April 18): 50 years of bringing the joy of singing to the Queen City. And it's a bittersweet moment too. After a 14-year tenure, this will be music director Richard Riley's final concert with the group. For the occasion, Riley commissioned a work from Burlington-based composer Michael Schachter to be paired with beloved works of Bach, including Cantata No. 140, Wachet Auf: Awake the voice is calling us. I spoke to both Richard and Michael to find out more.
RICHARD RILEY: I am Richard Riley. I'm the artistic director of the Burlington Choral Society since 2012.
MICHAEL SCHACHTER: My name is Mike Schachter. I'm a composer, pianist and writer. And this is the second time I've been commissioned to write a new work for the BCS.
HELEN: Thank you both so much for chatting with me. Richard, let's start with you. Tell us a little bit about your beginnings with the Burlington Choral Society.
RICHARD: I was new to town, heard about the opening. It was a beautiful next step because I had pursued a dual career between performance and management, and I no longer wanted to manage, I wanted to perform. We wanted to pick repertoire that really added to the bloom of the choral scene in Burlington.
HELEN: And I know from experience, you do not shy away from tackling really challenging, large-scale works with your singers.
RICHARD: When I began my artistic director position back in 2012, it was the sheer scope of what was possible that excited me. What I find is that the singers in the chorus, their pulse gets strong and rapid with the excitement of doing music that in many cases is typically done with mammoth size orchestras, so I have sought out arrangements that bring the great large pieces into a format that makes it possible for us to get on some exciting, fast moving trains.
HELEN: And so tell us about the journey you'll be taking this weekend. What program will you be bringing for your final concert with the BCS?
RICHARD: The title of the concert is ‘All Is Breath.’ The program is Bach and Schachter. The first four pieces are all Bach, including two pieces that were not originally written for chorus. I have created arrangements of instrumental music for chorus and, and the orchestra. One, a text from Wachet Auf to the air from the Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major. But the second half of the program is all Mike Schachter: one piece that he wrote a number of years ago, and then Kohelet will be the world premiere and that will be the crown to the entire concert.
HELEN: A premiere is always so exciting, and so now, Michael, tell us about this new work you've written for the BCS.
MICHAEL: He [Richard] came to me a little while ago with the 50th anniversary in mind, saying, I would like to do something that would pair well with the Bach cantata of Wachet Auf, which is one of his favorite pieces. It happens to be one of my favorite pieces. This new piece is called Kohelet, which is better known in English as Ecclesiastes. There's acknowledgement of the fleetingness and the fragility of life and our inherent ignorance and knowing what this is all for and what comes after. In that ignorance, rather than give over to nihilism or despair, that we can make time of the limited breath that's in our lungs. We can enjoy meals and laughter with loved ones, and is that enough? And I think it is…And I think also there's of course the famous, 'for everything there is a season, a time to dance, a time to love.' That to me spoke to the twin excitement of Dick's retirement and The choir's 50th anniversary, sort of seeing time as both a straight line and as this rhythm of cycles. And that was on the brain and in the mind and in the heart.
HELEN: And how does it connect to the concert's theme of ‘all is breath?’
MICHAEL: The opening of Ecclesiastes is ‘Vanity, vanity of vanities,’ and if you look back at the original, the word in Hebrew is ‘hevel,’ which translates more closely to breath or vapor, but I, I was interested both in the literal sense of breath and also that connection to singing and choral music, and I think there's a little bit less of a value judgment that is implied when you say the word breath as opposed to vanity, which has a little bit of that, you know, Sunday school judgment to it. We as humans believe ourselves to be the center of everything and to live forever, but we, we may or may not. We only know what's in our sensory experience.
HELEN: It sounds like you have both put together a really meaningful 50th anniversary slash retirement concert. Any last thoughts before we go - Michael?
MICHAEL: This is a program that's built off of a cantata that's about 300 years old and another that will be born in that very moment and sort of connecting across time and space, the beauty and wonder of singing and sharing a space altogether.
HELEN: And Richard?
RICHARD: I've been stimulated to dive deep into Bach's music my whole life. But along with that, along with the old, I've always sought to dive into new music. So this program really does reference Bach and new music. For me, that's the way I'd like to go out.
HELEN: Join in the celebrations with the Burlington Choral Society's 50th anniversary concert, All Is Breath, Music of Bach and Schachter. Saturday April 18th at 7:30 at the Elley Long Music Center. For more information and tickets, head to bcsvermont.org.
