Sunny sounds meet sacred texts at the Finger Lakes Choral Festival

Print More

A mass that begins the chorus singing “Kyrie eleison” (“lord, have mercy”) to an infectious samba rhythm? Or is accompanied by a Caribbean steel drum band?

It’s perhaps not a typical choral program, but it is a typically imaginative one for the Finger Lakes Choral Festival.

The FLCF returns to Hochstein Performance Hall Sunday afternoon for its annual free summer performance, and an unusually appealing program.

Ariel Ramirez’s “Missa Criolla” and Glenn McClure’s “St. Francis in the Americas” are sunny musical settings of devotional texts, reveling in colorful Latin rhythms and percussion and catchy melodies.

Conductor Eric Townell, who leads this weekend’s concert, has been director of the Rochester Oratorio Society since 2006, and the Finger Lakes Choral Festival since 2018. (His participation with the ensemble goes back a bit earlier; he played the tuba in the orchestra for Verdi’s “Requiem” in 2016.)

Photo courtesy of FLCF

Summer choral ensembles give dedicated singers a chance to perform, when established choruses and church choirs take a few months off, and often include many familiar faces. Of this year’s 103-member chorus, Townell says, “I think 65 to 70 percent of our singers are new to me.”

A major reason for this change: This year the chorus offered a brief intensive rehearsal period alternative to encourage visiting singers.

The tight time frame of rehearsals, Townell says, requires music that is easy to put together and to rehearse— but is not simple-minded—and will appeal to a wide audience.

The FLCF has a long history. Founded in 2004 by Adrian Horn, the chorus has been a summer tradition ever since (including an online presentation during the pandemic). Originally specializing in the great works of the choral repertoire by Bach, Beethoven, Verdi, and Berlioz, the concerts were varied to include more unusual works and themed concerts like “When Love Goes Wrong,” operatic choruses from tragic love stories.

Under Townell’s directorship, the programming focus on variety and inclusion has continued, with music by female, Black, Latin, and other composers. (This is also true of his leadership of the Oratorio Society.) Sunday’s program brings together two works based on indigenous music that are quite different, but in Townell’s words, go together perfectly.

The “Missa Criolla by Argentinian composer Ramirez was written in 1963 and has become a worldwide success thanks to several recordings. McClure’s “St. Francis in the Americas: A Caribbean Mass,” from 1997, has also become popular with choral groups. A YouTube search of both works reveals performances from Los Angeles, Seattle, Toronto, Croatia, England, and Poland.

Both masses replace the orchestra or organ with piano and ensembles of indigenous Latin and Caribbean percussion instruments: steel drums, bongos and shakers. For the FLCF concert, these will be performed by a popular local group, Pan Loco Steel Band. Pan Loco’s members include McClure, who taught at SUNY Geneseo for many years.

The masses feature two vocal soloists in this performance, tenor Pablo Willey-Bustos and mezzo-soprano Alicia Esmeralda Barry. The program also includes a solo spotlight for Ines Drakovic, chorus accompanist, who will play “Three Argentinian Dances” by Alberto Ginastera, the country’s most famous composer.

Like so many other ensembles, FLCF has been steadily rebuilding its organization and its audience since the lost year of the pandemic. For Townell, this was the central question: “How can we appeal to the 66 percent of our community that is underserved?”

With that in mind, while admission to Sunday’s concert is free, audience members are requested to bring food, clothing, or money donations for Action for a Better Community. Townell views the FLCF-ABC partnership as particularly valuable as the chorus redefines itself and its mission.

“Some of our singers may have asked themselves why we sang every summer,” says Townell. “Now, they know.”

David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer. The Beacon welcomes comments and letters from readers who adhere to our comment policy including use of their full, real name. Submissions to the Letters page should be sent to [email protected]

One thought on “Sunny sounds meet sacred texts at the Finger Lakes Choral Festival

  1. Take the organ/orchestra out and it simply takes the word traditional out and alters the choral to be something other than. If this was the intent, success. It seems that tradition needs to be snuffed out at every level to cater to the few. Or….maybe I’m just getting old and responding like my parents did when changes for the sake of changes became the norm.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *