Last Saturday evening I was priviledged to attend a wonderful choral concert, something that I’m not given much opportunity to do.  When you are a professional singer, you are usually booked with concerts of your own and so many times concerts overlap your collegues concerts.  So when I happened to have a Saturday night free, I attended the VocalEssence British Invasion concert at The Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis.

The ‘British Invasion’ in this case was none other than Simon Halsey, a celebrated choral conductor from across the pond and friend of VocalEssence’s Philip Brunelle.

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by Daniel Hathaway

In an era accustomed to sensory overload, when stage productions are hard put to compete with the technological wizardry available to film makers, it’s refreshing to spend a couple of hours in a vivid world created simply through the interaction of words and music.

The Rose Ensemble

The Rose Ensemble, founded in Minneapolis-St. Paul by Jordan Sramek in 1996, specializes in themed programs of extraordinary variety. The group produces a season of four to five subscription concerts every year, and tours programs exploring such wide-ranging repertory as ‘Voices of Ancient Mediterranean Christians, Jews and Muslims’, ‘Slavic Wonders: Feasts and Saints in Early Russia, Poland and Bohemia’, ‘Music from the Soul of the Hawaiian Saga’, and ‘A Mexican Baroque Christmas’. Their latest production explores the life of Francis of Assisi during the 800th anniversary year of the saint’s birth.

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A wonderful weekend of concerts celebrating the release of our new CD “Il Poverello: Medieval & Renaissance Music on the life of St. Francis of Assisi”

Francis was born Giovanni Francesco Bernardone and gave up a life of privilege for the materially impoverished life of a monk. He later founded an order of friars known as the Franciscans.

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I’m back home.  It’s was kind of a bittersweet tour for me this time.  I loved the Festival, seeing old friends and meeting new ones, singing with new Rosies and making some really fantastic music.  The churches were glorious and Piggy gave everyone a great smile.  Jordan from The Rose Ensemble has written a couple of blog posts that are a great read, and I’m including a few excerpts here:

“Ciao everyone – It’s another beautiful but hot day here in Legnano. The wisteria has started blooming and the hedges of jasmine are so fragrant (especially at night). There are red and blue hydrangeas everywhere (they’re HUGE) and in spite of the heat, everyone you see rarely actually looks hot (except for us, the Brits, the Norwegians and the Bulgarians; obviously the Cubans are doing fine). People here look good even when they’re going to the grocery store and there are more shops for shoes, purses and suits than one can imagine. Clothing is pretty darn pricey here, but the simple things seem to be cheaper. For example, a really great latte costs a mere 1.2 Euros (an espresso is only 85 cents) and you can get a decent bottle of Prosecco at the grocery store for about 3 Euros.

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What an amazing evening.  We weren’t sure at first how things were going to go.  Our bus was due to leave Legnano at 6:30pm, but there was no sign of our guide or our guest instrumentalist.  Around 7pm, Issaco arrived explaining that our guide was with the Norway choir and that our packet lunch and programs were left at the other hotel, so he had to swing by to pick them up on the way.  The sack lunch was there, but the water was missing and the programs were actually with us at our hotel.

On the bus another discovery was made – the programs were printing with the wrong show.  Not a problem – we  just didn’t pass them out and announced from the stage what we would be singing. 

We arrived in Missaglia to a wonderfully restored 16th century chapel and convent – the building was started in 1492 and completed in 1560.  On the chapel walls frescos remain that will be in the process of complete restoration.  The chapel itself was decommissioned and is now run by the town.  We are actually the first to give a concert in this space since the restoration.

And what a space!  It reminds me of why I sing the music I choose to sing.  Read more

Day 2 began with a quick breakfast at the hotel.. rather decent, actually. It’s buffet style with scrambled eggs, a selection of breads, croissants, pastry, cereals, & fruits. And coffee. But not just any coffee, you see you get a choice of a brewed pot of espresso or a pot of American coffee. I found that almost amusing – I mean come on. You go to Italy and have “American” coffee? One cool thing is that they steam the milk here and have that in a pot as well – how smart is that. It definately keeps your coffee hot rather than cooling it down with cold milk or cream.

Breakfast was rather quick – we had a 10:30 rehearsal and quick meeting to go over the day’s events. Tonight we sing part 2 of the choral marathon and I’m told we are the last of 10 choirs. The saving grace in all of this, as tired as we are from just arriving yesterday, is that we should be done by 9pm and back to the hotel by 10pm. This will give me the chance to hopefully catch up on much needed sleep since my body clock is still working the 7 hour time difference.

Well that was a good thought or should I say wishful thinking… Read more

For an unprecedented return engagement, The Rose Ensemble has been invited back to participate in the “La Fabbrica del Canto”, an international choral festival that takes place in and around the Milan region of Northern Italy.  The following blurb was published in an Italian paper this past week:

“The Rose Ensemble dal Minnesota, Usa (torna quest’anno a grande richiesta dopo l’acclamato successo dello scorso anno)”  – translation:  “The Rose Ensemble from Minnesota, use back this year in great demand after the acclaimed success of last year”

We will be presenting 2 separate programs, one sacred highlighting our Slavic show of Russian, Polish & Czech music and music of St. Francis of Assisi, and one secular program featuring music from our Hawaiian and Early American programs.  All of the choirs will perform two 20 minute highlight shows for the general public on two separate evenings at the beginning of the Festival.  This allows the audience to see what the choirs sound like and choose what programs they would like to see.  All concerts are free and begin at 9pm every evening during the run.

The nice thing about returning to a festival is that you have a really good idea of what to expect.  We already know that concerts will generally start around the 9:30ish time (we start when the people come!), we have great friends that we will meet up with, and we have a good idea of where to eat!  I seem to remember this great little gelato place on the plaza…

Speaking of meeting up with great friends, the vocal group Voces8 from London will be performing with us this year.  We had a wonderful time Read more

There are just some concerts that are worth the time to write about and this is one of them. Not, it wasn’t a classical or early music concert.  In fact, this was a jazz concert that I had the extreme luck to attend last night with my husband.  The group was the everlasting Manhattan Transfer.

Appearing for the first time at The Dakota, a small, intimate, classic jazz club located in downtown Minneapolis, this was the fourth show in 2 nights for the iconic jazz vocal quartet.  Made up of the same members that have been around in the public eye since 1975, Tim Hauser, Janis Segal, Alan Paul and Cheryl Bentyne – the group was actually formed in the early 70s by Tim Hauser, a former marketing man from New York City.  (Cheryl was actually added to the group in 1978 after soprano Laurel Massé was badly injured in an automobile accident.)

I have to give you little of my personal history

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