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Music

Published Sunday, February 18, 2001

S.F. Symphony practices for Carnegie Hall

  • The Grammy-winning group has 200 singers -- most of whom perform for love, not money

    By Lesley Valdes
    SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS


    Vance George is exuberant, and so are his singers. You can feel the excitement at a recent rehearsal at Davies Hall. The San Francisco Symphony Chorus master is steering them through Stravinsky's rambunctious "Les Noces" ("The Wedding"), and their mood is electric.

    They're preparing for their first performance at Carnegie Hall.

    For 18 years, or more than half of its existence, Vance George has trained this grand battalion of 200 singers -- 170 of whom receive no pay.

    George is a major figure in the choral field, and has led great groups in other cities. Until this week, however, the chorus master hasn't had the pleasure of taking his own people on tour.

    That changes Wednesday and Thursday when the San Francisco Symphony, Chorus and guest soloists take challenging programs of Stravinsky and Mahler to New York's Carnegie Hall.

    Music director Michael Tilson Thomas and the orchestra, of course, are no strangers to 57th Street. But imagine the thrill for a group that calls itself a family, whose members say things like "Singing for Vance and with Michael (Tilson Thomas) is a deeply spiritual experience."

    "We put our heart and soul into this," says Greg Boals, who sings bass and is chorus administrator. "For some of us, this has taken the place of going to church."

    The chorus has a core of 30 singers who are paid for their services, which is standard for the top-tier orchestras. The other rotating 170 -- cooks, carpenters, nurses, teachers, dot-commers -- sing for the sheer joy of communal musicmaking.

    "We are so excited to be going -- and to be going with this all-Stravinsky program. It's so creative, so challenging," Martha Horst says of the program, which includes "Les Noces," "Persephone," and "Symphony of Psalms," all performed in San Francisco last week. A composer and teacher, Horst has sung alto for 10 years.

    George himself calls it a "triathlon, it's so tough, so beautiful, and holds so many challenges." The repertoire, all infrequently performed, demands very different expressive styles. Singers must understand and project the meanings, colors, nuances of texts in Russian, French and Latin.

    "We go from the raunchy biting Slavic consonants of 'Les Noces' (despite the French title, it is sung in Russian) to the floating diaphanous qualities of 'Persephone,' which is sung in French, a language of dark hues that moves with elusive lightness," George says. Latin is required for Stravinsky's alternately acerbic and fluid "Symphony of Psalms," one of the most beautiful sacred choral pieces written in the 20th century.

    And then come the challenges of Mahler's "Das Klagende Lied."

    The chorus was formed almost 30 years ago ('72), when Seiji Ozawa was music director. It went through tough times in 1982, when music director Edo de Waart fired a beloved director, Louis Magor, and hired Chicago's famously gifted Margaret Hillis. Hillis, whose schedule was limited, asked a protégé -- George -- to share responsibilities the first year. By 1983, George was running things. By the time music director Herbert Blomstedt arrived, the chorus was getting its second wind.

    "Mr. Blomstedt really liked the chorus and used us a lot, but Michael loves it, so now we're singing all the time," George says.

    A symphonic chorus counts itself lucky to get four performances on-stage a season. But this one averages three to four performances per month -- including North American premieres such as last month's lauded "El Niño,'' by John Adams.

    "It's such a wonderful group of people. They are so dedicated. And the demands on their time are just tremendous," George says. "Since Aug. 26, we've been rehearsing three times a week -- and each rehearsal is three hours." That doesn't include travel time; some singers come from as far away as Martinez, San Jose and Stockton.

    "The time commitment is tremendous," says Horst, emphasizing the group's professionalism. "Attendance is taken; you don't come late or miss a rehearsal."

    "It's also a family," she says. George agrees.

    "I've had women come to rehearsal the day they find out a husband has cancer, because they know their friends are here," he says.

    When a retired symphony violinist died this month, his daughter -- who is in the chorus -- went to George, who arranged a memorial concert amid tour preparations.

    At 67, you could call Vance George a late bloomer on the choral mountainside. He hasn't enjoyed the fame of his mentors, Hillis, Shaw and Page, but now his teachers are gone, and it is fitting that the protégé's gifts are on display.

    His work warranted more attention last year when the San Francisco Symphony and Chorus won three Grammys. The Carnegie performances should ratchet up recognition for a chorus George believes "is now where Chicago's was when Margaret was alive," and Cleveland's was under both the Roberts, Shaw and Page.

    The nation's heartland apparently nurtures good choral leaders. George was born in Nappane, Ind., and studied music in Goshen, Madison and Bloomington. Growing up, "I thought I'd be a concert pianist and a professional singer," he says. "I was that naive; I thought you could do both.

    "I always loved singing. My mother would play the piano, and we'd perform for the Kiwanis Club and those little groups you sing for when you're 7." At Goshen College, the piano and voice major went to a concert given by the Robert Shaw Chorale, which sang the Schubert G Major Mass. George was blown away.

    "It's the sound I still aim for -- rich, full, distinctive at any volume level."

    Later he worked with Shaw, and also for Page when Page led the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra Chorus.

    It was in San Francisco that George decided his specialty was to be a "colorist," turning an innate facility with languages into a way to polish the timbral beauty of a song's words.

    "I'm captivated, entranced, by languages," says George, who speaks German and French, gets by in Italian, has worked extensively with Slavic languages and is now studying Spanish.

    He's a stickler for the myriad ways to express a text. Even his instructions are expressive: "Tenors, more snarl," he'll say, or "Let's have some 'Singing-in-the-Rain' Gene Kelly," or "More Ethel!," as in Merman, when he needs things belted out.

    But it's not sufficient to coach the singers, understand the repertoire and possess conducting skills. The choral director has to let go: let the music director stand on the podium and get the glory.

    He doesn't mind turning his hard work over to Tilson Thomas, he says. Great conductors will add their own interpretative mastery. "Michael will see things that I haven't. He'll take them to another level," George says.

    What makes a great chorus leader? "Affinity," he says. "And you have to understand that the voice is an instrument inside the body, so it's subject to more stresses and strains than an instrument outside the body ... air travel, allergies, emotions."

    Do discipline and kindness produce the best sounds from living instruments? "Yes!" says Judy Morrison, a chorister for 17 years.

    "Vance directs with a sheer love of us and the music we are creating," Morrison says, "and he always demands the best from us. We love him."

    "I have a tremendous empathy for my singers, who have to audition every year," George says, recalling his own training. "I suffered during auditions, never liked any of my juries. It wasn't until I started doing this that I really learned to sing."

    "I had been trained in a very negative environment, a knock-'em-down, embarrass people ... And that all changed when I came out here. Things were really difficult in the transition years, but I realized that style of working wasn't going to work for me.

    "I thought: 'I'm in California now and I'm going to be positive,' and it's worked.

    "And now 18 years later to be going to Carnegie Hall, well, just to say it's a dream come true isn't enough."

  •    

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