At St. James Episcopal Church on Broadway last Friday evening, two excellent choral groups from East Tennessee State University presented programs of classical music and more modern a cappella music that is currently the rage among both young and old.
Dr. Matthew Potterton, director of choral and vocal activities at ETSU, first directed the ETSU Chorale. They began with contemporary Scottish composer Thomas LaVoy’s 2015 setting of the 15th century middle-English text about Adam being bound in limbo, after his death, until the birth of Jesus, which as the song puts it, happens some “four thousand winter” later.
ETSU’s Chorale, directed by Dr. Matthew Potterton
The text twists and turns through several repeats in musically interesting chromatic order, with notes held by selected voices throughout the piece, symbolizing the timespan between Adam and Jesus.
After Jake Runestad’s lovely canon “Alleluia,” the chorale sang Welsh composer Paul Mealor’s “Ubi Caritas,” written for the wedding of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, known by everyone as William and Kate.
Clearly written for a stately celebration of some kind, its dignified timing and harmonies convey the message that “where charity and love are, God is there.”
Austrian composer Franz Herzog’s “Gloria” and fellow countryman Anton Bruckner’s “Os justi,” both well performed, followed.
Then the mood shifted to Shawn Kirchner’s arrangement of the 1879 American gospel song “Unclouded Day,” written by Josiah Kelley Alwood, and Brandon Waddels’ arrangement of the American spiritual “Cert’nly Lord.”
The chorale turned loose with both pieces. What had been a tightly formed ensemble with each singer watching Potterton carefully and listening intently to the close harmonies of the other voices began to move in the rhythm and spirit of the music.
Throughout their program, the intonation of this group of singers was spot on. It has to be when they’re mixed together, instead of singing clustered together in their voice parts.
After a short break, Grayscale, ETSU’s smaller and hip a cappella ensemble, sang music made famous by popular British groups The Swingles and The King’s Singers, along with music made famous by Stevie Wonder, Adele, Sam Smith, One Republic and Maroon 5.
Grayscale began with a jazz scat arrangement of Rossini’s “William Tell Overture,” from his opera of the same title. The older people in the audience remembered it as the theme song from the early television show “The Lone Ranger,” which the young people in Grayscale likely had never seen.
Emmi Cabello and Mark Shelton were the soloists for “Superstition,” followed by Luke Phillips and Hannah Lawson’s solos in “Tiger in the Deep.”
Jared Erwin sang a solo in “Misery” and Rebekah Cormack matched it in “Lay Me Down.”
But it was Mark Shelton’s solo in “Love Runs Out,” which he paraded up and down the center aisle, that got many in the crowd rocking and singing along with him.
Dr. Alan Stevens, associate director of choral activities and coordinator of vocal music education, is Grayscale’s director. Stevens is known locally as the music director and conductor of the Knoxville Gay Men’s Chorus.
Throughout the presentation by both groups the singers’ pitches were dead on. They have to be when the music demands tight harmonies and chalkboard-scraping dissonances.
In a brief exchange with Stevens about my disappointment over less than crisp diction, he pointed out that much of it was due to the acoustics of St. James’ sanctuary, which they had worked hard to overcome in rehearsal.
Even considering that, I would gladly listen again to both the chorale and Grayscale at St. James.