On Saturday, Dec. 6, members of Harvard Pro Musica performed the first of their two holiday concerts for the 2014 season. This year’s concert featured the first three cantatas of J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, which the chorus performed for a sell-out crowd in the Unitarian Church. While Pro Musica’s concerts are often well attended, this performance drew a particularly large audience. Instead of denying space to hopeful listeners, ushers led attendees who had not pre-purchased tickets to rows of metal folding chairs set up as overflow seating in the balcony and along the aisles of the church.
Andy Icochea Icochea. (Courtesy photo)
Changes in the Pro Musica organization may be part of the draw causing the robust crowd. The concert is the first under the creative leadership of the group’s new artistic director, Andy Icochea Icochea, who joined the group in August. The new director has been warmly received into Pro Musica. In the program’s welcome note, Board President Kathy Hewett notes, “In three short months, Andy has deepened our sense of the universal in Bach’s choral work” with his “motivating wit and energy.”
Exuberant chorales
Icochea Icochea says he selected the Bach Oratorio both because it is a personal favorite and because the chorus has the “lightness” and skill to perform Bach’s exuberant chorales and joyful layers of sound. During the performance, the music Pro Musica produced was rich and well supported. Pitch and intonation were strong; the consonant-laden German phrases were enunciated with precision but not harshness; and the blend of voices was evocative and celebratory.
Joining the 50-member chorus for this concert were four vocal soloists: soprano Kimberly Ayers, bass Elem Eley, mezzo-soprano Kimberly Leeds, and tenor Rockland Osgood. All four soloists were excellent. They performed their sections standing apart from the chorus, sometimes from the back of the sanctuary, in the balcony, or in the front near the piano. The effect was profound, as velvety soprano and rich bass notes floated to the audience from all sides of the room. The impossible-seeming loft of the highest tenor and soprano solos rang out with clarity and emotion.
The singers were accompanied by instrumental soloists: trumpeters Matt Gaunitz, Eric Rizzo, and Ayano Tomioka; flutist Jennifer Borkowski; timpanist Eric Huber; and pianist Susan Minor. The musicality and precision of the instrumentalists were notable. From the balcony, the trumpets and timpani gave depth to the overall sound. The trumpet notes pierced the air, bell-like in their punch and ring. The high, floating flute and graceful piano in the front of the room rounded out the warm, instrumental sound.
Bands, choruses and a sing-along
Pro Musica will perform their holiday concert again at St. John the Evangelist Church in Clinton on Sunday, Dec. 14, at 5 p.m. The Dec. 14 concert will feature organist Ian Watson in lieu of piano.
There are many other local musical events to ring in the holiday season. The Concord Band’s 2014 Holiday Pops concert will be on Dec. 12 and 13 at 51 Walden in Concord. The Clinton Holiday Pops “Sounds of the Season” concert is scheduled for Dec. 13 at the Clinton Town Hall. In Hudson, the River’s Edge Holiday Concert, featuring band, chorale, and youth chorus, will be on Dec. 14. Also on Dec. 14, there will be an Advent Hanukkah Vesper Service at First Parish Church in Stow, featuring Corelli’s Christmas Concerto and music from the Advent and Hanukkah religious traditions. The Family Holiday Sing Along at Littleton’s Indian Hill Music School offers free, child-friendly music on Dec. 20. And for those who like to sing along, there will be a Messiah Sing at Harvard’s Unitarian Church on Dec. 21.
