Clearlakes Chorale Offers Annual Christmas Concert

by Ted Jones
(reprinted by permission of The Laker)

I guess I'm not the first person to struggle with the dilemma of how to describe a sound. Even if we were face to face, I could not tell you what it is like. I guess I could hum a few bars, but believe me, you would not be impressed. Writers have used words such as: brilliant, sweet, tuneful, powerful, lyrical, majestic, mournful, sonorous...Help me out here, I'm reaching.

So how do I describe to you what I heard one Thursday evening at a rehearsal of the eighty-four voices of the Clearlakes Chorale? I will not try, but I will try to put their singing into a sort of perspective.

What's the big deal about eighty four voices anyway? In this day of electronic wizardry, synthesized sound, why can't we be happy with one each soprano, alto, tenor and bass? If we want to multiply them by twenty one, why can't we get the same thing by laying down the same. four tracks twenty one times? We wouldn't need a conductor, just a mixer. We wouldn't need the large parking lot and hall of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Wolfeboro for rehearsals. Our four singers wouldn't even need to be in the same room, singing at the same time. Simply take their individual sound tracks and blend them together in a gigantic electronic Mixmaster. If we could do that, wouldn't it make sense to combine the world's greatest singers into four-part harmony and let their digital images have at it? I guess the scientific answer is that each voice has unique qualities though they be singing the same note, and even within the broadly defined ranges of soprano, alto, tenor and bass; the bringing together of these individuals produces a unique sound which a single voice, no matter how many times it is replicated, cannot duplicate.

Andy Campbell is the director of the Clearlakes Chorale. He is also Director of Music at Brewster Academy, has dedicated a large part of his career to the study and performance of choral music, and has earned advanced degrees from the Yale School of Music. Before coming to Brewster in 1993, he served as director of choral music at Santa Barbara Conservatory of Music and Arts, the Cate School, and the Vocal Institute of the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has worked with the Clearlakes Chorale since 1997 and with the Great Waters Music Festival since 1998. Andy directs a wide range of choral music and has appeared in concert with his choirs throughout the United States and Great Britain. I met with him in his office at Brewster, and as our interview concluded, I invited myself to a rehearsal of the Clearlakes Chorale. Obviously, I couldn't review a performance when the purpose of this article is to preview the performance, but even if I could, I had the notion that I would learn much about the chorale and its director by watching and listening to them in rehearsal, perhaps even more than at an actual performance.

The individual voices of the Clearlakes Chorale are composed of amateur singers who live in Wolfeboro and surrounding communities. The word "amateur" might suggest an ensemble with .somewhat lower standards than a chorus of paid vocalists. Such is not the case; their singing may be judged fairly against any professional group. In fact, rather than being paid, the chorale members pay dues for the privilege of singing, and there is a waiting list to join. It was formed in 1981 by area residents interested in learning and performing serious music. It his grown from three charter members to a current level of eighty-four voices, four more than the maximum of eighty specified by their charter. Clearlakes Chorale was incorporated in 1984 as a tax-exempt organization. Also in 1984, the chorale's first paid performance marked the opening of Mill Falls Marketplace in Meredith. In 1985, the chorale performed its first Christmas concert at the First Congregational Church in Wolfeboro.

This year's Christmas concert will take place at All Saints Episcopal Church, South Main Street, Wolfeboro, December 3rd and 4th, at 8 p.m., and on the 5th at 2 p.m. The concert includes: Haydn's Missa Brevis Sancti Johannes de Deo, a piece for string quartet and organ, and a number of beautifully arranged carols, many of which will be familiar. The chorale is also planning to participate in the Wolfeboro First Night celebration on New Year's Eve. I heard portions of this music in rehearsal.

It is no mean feat to bring eighty-four individuals into a room to sing together and have it sound like something you'd want to hear. To bring order out of chaos, these individuals need a leader. They have to be organized, they have to be told where to stand or sit, they have to read the same music, and they have to be told when to start singing and, when to stop, when to sing forte and when pianissimo-and those are just the basics. All of these things I witnessed that Thursday evening, and when I heard the result, it was stunning.

Andy Campbell is dynamically out-going and demonstrative. His "day job" as Director of Music at Brewster Academy also finds him as a dorm master (which means he is on duty 24/7). One wonders how he finds the time to study the music sung by the chorale, but it was evident during the rehearsal that he knows every note of every part, and he has a clear vision of how each note is to be sung.

Andy leads by example, even demonstrating the soprano part in a practiced falsetto, and his attack is always on pitch without prompting on the piano from accompanist, Diana Kirkpatrick—quite extraordinary. His manner is serious with an overriding touch of humor and wit. This is clearly a lot of fun for Andy (although at the beginning of the rehearsal he confessed to the group that he'd rather be singing than conducting), and the fun is infectious. No one can be offended by his directions, yet it is apparent that perfection, as be sees it (or hears it), is the goal. I was impressed at the apparent ease with which he molds each of the parts of each composition into a unified whole. The first run-through was invariably a little ragged; the attacks tentative, subtleties of pitch needed work. He may work with the ensemble as a whole or with the individual parts as needed until the singers blend as a unit as he directs, or he may work with the individual parts, then add the altos to the sopranos, the basses to the tenors, and when he is satisfied with each part within a very few minutes he brings the ensemble to sing together in a transformation which is seemingly magical. Credit clearly belongs as well to the individual singers without whose talents and dedication the director would be simply a clown jumping around in front of them waving his arms in futility. That's how it might appear to an observer unable to hear, but the music they produce is...pick a word from our list.

When the rehearsal had concluded, I spoke to Andy briefly, to thank him for letting me be there, and he said, "You're still here. I didn't expect you to stay for the whole rehearsal." I told him that I wasn't about to leave the room with all that great music going on.

Next year, the Clearlakes Chorale is planning a series of concerts in celebration of its 25th anniversary. The schedule and selections have been established through 2006. The chorale is supported by annual dues paid by its members. Additional funds have come from concert ticket sales, concert program advertisements and individual donations. The chorale would like to commission an original composition to mark its quarter-century, and for this, additional funds may be needed. An original composition could cost anywhere from nothing to more than $20,000 depending on many variables, including the complexity and length of the composition and, I suppose, inversely proportional to the the eagerness of the composer to have the work published. It is an exciting and ambitious project which will very likely require sponsorship by additional patrons.

Andy and I also spoke about the need for a concert hall in Wolfeboro. Presently, the only venues available are the community's churches, and while the acoustics of each of them is very good, their limited capacity often means turning away many who would like to attend concerts. This is one of the reasons the chorale has set a limit at eighty voices—the chorale becomes a large part of a facility's maximum capacity. Area schools have facilities with greater capacities, but because they were not designed for concerts, their acoustics are less than ideal. With the great interest in serious music within the Wolfeboro community, it is a shame that there is no suitable concert hall where great performances such as the Clearlakes Chorale may be heard.

Additional information aoout the Christmas concert and other projects of the Clearlakes Chorale may be obtained from the chorale's president, Bruce McCracken, at P. O. Box 223, Wolfeboro, NH 03894.

I will not be offended if you think I have failed to convey in words, the sounds which may be heard at a live performance of the Clearlakes Chorale. You'll simply have to go to the Christmas concert to hear this wonderful choral music for yourself.