Sunday, April 6, 2014

Concert Review / Montgomery Chorale and Atlanta Baroque Symphony under the direction of Rebecca Taylor

So, last night I drive up to Montgomery to hear the Atlanta Baroque Symphony and the Montgomery Chorale under the direction of Becky Taylor perform flawlessly the Bach Mass in B minor. This almost 3 hour concert was done in its entirety, when some times parts are left out due to the very length of the piece. Becky (Rebecca Taylor) arm must have been sore after the beautiful and tranquil, yet energetic at times, Mass in B minor because she never missed a beat if her butterfly arm movements conducting and Chorale and the Symphony. I swear, if the Montgomery Advertiser does not give her, the Chorale and the ABS a flawless review, they should be horse whipped. Because my and everyone "bravo" and 5 minute plus standing ovation meant something. If you missed it, you missed a treat but maybe I may oblige and offer a play by play dissertation as to what you missed. Once again an absolute great performance to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by the hand of J.S. Bach and the again flawless epic ear candy provided by the Montgomery Chorale and the Atlanta Baroque Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Rebecca Taylor.    

The Montgomery Chorale :


Montgomery has been blessed by the arts, and in the case of the choral arts, it has been especially blessed to receive 40 years of professional quality music from the Montgomery Chorale, one of the city’s oldest musical performing arts organization and its official performing choral group. The Chorale has made a significant contribution to the musical enrichment of the community.

The Chorale’s dedication to presenting professional quality choral performances and its requirement that all members must audition in order to participate have helped produce a musically compatible blend of voices at ease with any musical composition from Beethoven to Berlin.
For all of its national and international accomplishments, the Chorale’s first priority is the citizens of Montgomery and the surrounding region, and it has been involved in a broad range of community events, including Jubilee Weekend, the Christmas Light Show at the Montgomery Zoo, Festival in the Park, Zoo Weekend, and in working jointly in concerts with other arts organizations, including the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra, whose members frequently accompany Chorale concerts, the Alabama Dance Theater, and the Montgomery Ballet.
atlanta baroque symphony orchestraThe Chorale’s audiences have been the real beneficiaries of the group’s unique ability to master both classical and popular compositions, from Mozart to Gershwin. Year in and year out, the Chorale’s talented singers have provided something for everyone.
Montgomery is a city rich in tradition, and it is replete with landmarks glorifying that tradition. One of its finest and oldest musical performing arts traditions is the Montgomery Chorale, still young at 40 and looking forward to many more years and many more generations of music lovers to entertain.


The Montgomery Chorale is under direction of Rebecca (Becky) Taylor

Becky is the Director of Music Ministries, Organist, and Choirmaster at Church of the Ascension in Montgomery, Alabama.

In 2000, she earned a Master of Music Degree in Organ Performance and Choral Conducting at the University of Alabama, studying with Warren Hutton and Sandra Willetts. Prior to studying in Tuscaloosa, she had served at Ascension since 1984 as both Organist and Choir Director. Her under-graduate degree is in Music Education from Florida State University.

Becky's musical background is varied, including her two-year tenure as the initial director (and current board member) of the Montgomery-based Alabama Institute for Education in the Arts, which trains teachers in discipline-based arts education. She has taught music at both The Montgomery Academy and Saint James School. In addition to teaching summer programs and working with Jubilee and Children's Theatre for the City of Montgomery, she was founding director of the Montgomery Area Girls' Chorus. She has performed with the Alabama Shakespeare Festival and the Montgomery Symphony, among numerous performances as solo performer, accompanist, and conductor.
Becky served as accompanist for many years for the Montgomery Chorale and served as interim-director for the 1998-1999 season. She has been musical director for the Jasmine Hills Arts Council, helping to direct and produce five shows. While in Tuscaloosa, she was the organist at Christ Episcopal Church and was invited to prepare the choruses for the world premiere of a work written to celebrate the birthday of Martin Luther King by internationally recognized composer Gunther Schüller. She currently serves as Sub-Dean of the Montgomery Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and serves in the Department of Liturgy and Music for the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama.

The Atlanta Baroque Symphony Orchestra: 


atlanta baroque symphony orchestra

atlanta baroque symphony orchestra


The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra (ABO), founded in 1997 in Atlanta, Georgia, is the first and oldest professional orchestra in the Southeastern United States of America dedicated to historically informed performance, (also called "authentic performance practice") of music from the Baroque era on period instruments. The Atlanta Baroque Orchestra gave its premiere concert in January, 1998. The first Director of the ABO was lute and theorbo player Lyle Nordstrom, who departed in 2003. As several guest directors were brought in for concerts, John Hsu, noted performer on the viola da gamba and baryton, took the title of Artistic Advisor, becoming Artistic Director in July 2004; he continued through the 2008-2009 season. From 2004 through 2011, the Resident Director was founding member Daniel Pyle, harpsichordist and organist, and also Instructor of Music at Clayton State University and Organist and Choir Director at the Anglican Church of Our Saviour in Atlanta. Violinist, dancer and choreographer Julie Andrijeski became Artistic Director in February, 2011.[1]
The ABO usually performs four to six concerts per year, concentrating on orchestral works and concerti, but often featuring chamber pieces, vocal cantatas, and other works with vocal soloists. The range of works performed by the ABO stretches back to the beginnings of Baroque style around the year 1600, while their core repertoire is centered in music from many composers who worked in the Middle Baroque era of Pachelbel and Corelli (the late 1600s) and the High Baroque era of Vivaldi, Bach, Handel and Telemann (up through 1750). They have also performed the music of Mozart and Haydn, and the string symphonies of Mendelssohn from the 1820s.
Several concerts have featured the orchestra accompanying Baroque dancers. Most performers with the ABO are university instructors and professors with advanced degrees, and all are specialists in authentic performance practice, playing replicas of the actual instruments used in the Baroque era. Such an ensemble produces a sound that is quite different from that of ensembles that use modern orchestral instruments. Baroque violins, violas and cellos use strings of sheep gut and bows of an earlier design, rather than the louder string instruments strung with steel strings played by conventional orchestras. Likewise, the Baroque flute is made of wood and does not have keys, while the Baroque horn (often called the natural horn) has no valves. Other instruments featured in a Baroque orchestra include the harpsichord and lautenwerk, viola da gamba and bass viol, recorder, Baroque bassoon, lute and theorbo.
Because of the relatively small number of musicians who specialize in playing Baroque-era instruments, the ABO consists of a smaller core of regular musicians who live in the Atlanta area, supplemented for each concert by performers and featured soloists brought in from throughout the United States of America and occasionally from overseas.
Guest artists and directors have included leading Baroque and Classical-period performers: violinists Stanley Ritchie, Monica Huggett, Sergiu Luca, and Dana Maiben; Paul O'Dette, lute; Aldo Abreu, recorder; soprano Julianne Baird;  Stephen Rickards, countertenor; oboist Matthew Peaceman; and Baroque dancers Paige Whitley-Bauguess and Thomas Baird.
Signatory concerts of the ABO include the first performances in Atlanta on period instruments of:
and a year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart in 2006. In 2009, they devoted concerts to the symphonies of Haydn, celebrating the 300th anniversary of his birth.
In addition to its own concerts, the orchestra has performed in collaboration with other organizations throughout the Southeast, including at conferences of the National Flute Convention, the American Musicological Society, and the Southeast Historical Keyboard Society. The ABO has performed on the campuses of Emory University, the University of Georgia, Florida State University, Kennesaw State University, Clayton College and State University, Oglethorpe University, and Valdosta State University. The ABO has performed in venues in Birmingham, Alabama, Pensacola, Florida, Rome, Georgia, and Conyers, Georgia. The orchestra has also partnered with choral organizations including the Emory Concert Choir, Atlanta Choral Artists, the Schola Cantorum of Atlanta, Clayton State Collegiate Chorale, Clayton Camerata, Dekalb Choral Guild, the Westminster Choir, Chandler Choraliers, and choirs from Peachtree Road United Methodist Church in Atlanta, Intown Community Church in Atlanta, and Independent Presbyterian Church, Birmingham, Alabama.
To date the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra has not released any recordings.
(borrowed from their website http://atlantabaroque.org/)

THE CONCERT 
Bach - Mass in B minor / Montgomery Chorale, Atlanta Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Rebecca (Becky) Taylor. April 5th, 2014.  Saint John Episcopal Church in Montgomery, Alabama. 
++ Sold out performance: 
I drive up to Montgomery with my friend Gene to hear the Atlanta Baroque Symphony and the Montgomery Chorale under the direction of Becky Taylor and it was absolutely performed flawlessly. The Bach Mass in B minor starts in a minor key of B minor and increases in excitement and tension until it culminates into a B major ending. It is very eye opening and very moving. I wiped tears from my eyes many times at the beauty this piece brings and if it is done exceptionally well, as it was tonight.  
It started a little past 7 PM, as it was SOLD OUT and folks were still coming in at 7PM, but tickets being 50 and 25 dollars, people were able to come on in and experience this 3 hour concert. It was done in its entirety, when some times parts are left out due to the very length of the piece. Becky (Rebecca Taylor) arm must have been sore after the beautiful and tranquil, yet energetic at times, because she never missed a beat.  Her butterfly arm movements conducting and Chorale and the Symphony seemed as poetry in motion. I swear, if the Montgomery Advertiser does not give her, the Chorale and the ABS a flawless review, they should be horse whipped. Because my and everyone "bravo" and 5 minute plus standing ovation meant something. 
If you missed it, you missed a treat but perhaps I may oblige and offer a play by play dissertation as to what you missed. Once again an absolute great performance to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by the hand of J.S. Bach and the again flawless epic ear candy provided by the Montgomery Chorale and the Atlanta Baroque Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Rebecca Taylor.

 First and Foremost - The ABSO used period instruments. Cat gut strings on the stringed instruments (meant adjusting several times throughout the concert and valveless brass wind instruments that needed (well lets just say the "spit" knocked out of them several times" Here is the review:

The Mass in B minor - J.S. Bach

 Kyrie (Kyrie eleison) "Lord, have mercy" Chorus

 Christie "Christ, have mercy" duet sopranos Erin Joyce and Janet Gibson
*(Erin and Janet will be stars in a few years of opera or church worship music, both are excellent)

 Kyrie "Lord, have mercy" Chorus

 Gloria "Glory to God in the highest" Chorus

 Laudamus te "We praise You" - aria soprano Janet Gibson

 Gratoas "We give you thanks" Chorus

 Domine Deus "Lord God, King of Heaven" duet soprano and tenor Turia Stark 
Williams and John Martin
*(Turia is a fine soprano, no flaws and projects very well. Ok, this tenor (John Martin) is fine, dare I say great. His angelic yet masculine voice is that of a young Paul Groves but is so strong, truly his voice is unbelievable, I almost want to jump the pew), WOW !! 

 Qui Tollis "Who takes the sins of the world" Chorus

 Qui sedes "Who sits at the right hand of God"   aria alto Lauren Simpson
*(I most likely could hear Lauren sing all night long) Wow what a great alto voice, strong and delicate both at the same time.

 Quoniam "For You alone are worthy"  aria bass Bill Taylor
*(I've heard Bill sing many times and he's like wine or cheese, the older he gets the better his voice is, great flawless piece of music by Bill)

 Cum Sancto "With the Holy Spirit in the glory of God the Father"   Chorus

 Credo "I believe in one God"     Chorus

 Patrem omnipotentem "the Father, the Almighty"     Chorus

 Et in unnum "and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God" duet soprano and alto Erica Jenkins and Lauren Simpson

 Et incarnatus "By the power of the Holy Spirit"    Chorus

 Crucifixus "for our sake he was crucified"       Chorus     

 >> INTERMISSION <<

 Et resurrexit "on the third day, He arose"     Chorus

 Et in Spiritum "and I believe in the Holy Spirit" aria bass Bill Taylor  

 Confiteor "I acknowledge one baptism"     Chorus

 Sanctus "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts"   Chorus

 Osanna "Hosannah in the highest"     Chorus

 Benedictus "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord"  aria tenor John Martin

Osanna "Hosannah in the highest"    Chorus

 Agnus Dei "Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world"  aria alto Lauren Simpson

 Dona nobis pacem " grant us peace"    Chours    (in B major), was exciting as an ending should be and bravos and applause filled St. John's.





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