Artistic Director Bruce Tammen, Memory Eternal, Hyde Park Union Church, March 27, 2022. Photo by Janice Marin and Carbon Table Photography.
Chicago Chorale will conclude its twentieth year with a pair of anniversary concerts on June 11 and 12. Twenty-two of us gathered for our first-ever rehearsal in October, 2001; our first public performance took place in December of that year.
Many singers have joined and left our ranks during the ensuing years. We have served as a musical home away from home for students and faculty of the University of Chicago; DePaul, Northwestern, and Roosevelt universities; public and private school teachers; doctors, nurses, lawyers, psychologists, therapists, and computer engineers; piano technicians, real estate agents, photographers; mothers, fathers, and grandparents. Many a couple, some of them with children of their own now, met during our rehearsals.
Our repertoire list is immense, from major works by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Duruflé, Fauré, Mahler, Mozart, and Vaughan Williams, to Renaissance masses and motets by Tallis, Byrd, Palestrina, Victoria, and Lassus, and Weelkes; modern Scandinavian and Baltic works by Grieg, Nysetdt, Eriksson, Ešenvalds, Dubra, Gjeilo, Miskinis, Pärt, Sandström; American music by Samuel Barber, Jerome Kern, Morten Lauridsen, Alice Parker, Stephen Paulus, Vincent Persichetti, Randall Thompson, Josef Weisgal; more Russian liturgical music than you can shake a stick at; and as much Bruckner as we could make time for. The list goes on.
We have been ambitious. We started out with two concert preparations per season, each concert performed once; that soon expanded to three preparations, performed twice, often with a supplementary summer preparation and performance with the CSO at the Ravinia Festival. We have performed with Chicago Civic Orchestra and with the Symphony of Oak Park and River Forest. We have performed several live programs on WFMT (our next is May 23!), we have produced six CDs, are winding up preparations for our third European tour, and have survived a pandemic.
It often feels like too much, that we are exceeding the group’s capacity. Some of our members get run off their feet. But our mission remains alive and vibrant: to present thoughtful, well-prepared performances of good music. In a world dominated by media, by calculated professionalism, by manipulated recordings, by an elite subculture that seems to do all the performing, while most of us just listen and pay, Chorale offers real people the challenge and opportunity to grapple with great music, great composers, and great repertoire, on a personal, sometimes painful, but always stimulating and transformative level. We meet composers and their dreams and visions, head-on. And we share what we experience with a like-minded community, singers and listeners both, people moved and inspired by live performance.
If you don't know us, you should. We are a vital part of your community. Please join us for our celebratory events in the coming weeks: our WFMT broadcast on May 23; our gala on May 25, hosted by WFMT’s Lisa Flynn; our in-person, local reunion on May 31; and our concerts in June. We want you to become a part of our family.