UPDATE:  Latest review of this live concert by St. Paul Pioneer Press

This Rose Ensemble program is a true holiday gift

The self-describing motto of the Rose Ensemble is “reawakening the ancient.” But for some of us, not all of the ensemble’s enveloping Christmas program of early American music is ancient.

This transplanted Kentucky boy, reared in a preacher’s family, had no trouble singing the old camp song “Jesus the Light of the World” without consulting the lyrics printed in the program. It was the only sing-along number in the concert, but a rousing one.

And Shaker songs like “Harps of Welcome,” “Give Good Gifts” and “Pretty Home” were familiar to these ears from visits to the Pleasant Hill colony near Lexington, which is now a Kentucky historic site. Indeed, “Pretty Home,” which was sung by the ensemble’s engagingly robust alto, Lisa Drew, included the rhythmic foot stomping that sounded like thunder when heard years ago in Pleasant Hill’s bare-floored meeting hall. To these ears, it was a journey to a beloved time and distant place.  

For these concerts, the Rose Ensemble numbers 11 singers and a small battery of instrumentalists, some of the latter performing on old instruments like viola da gamba and baroque guitar. The vocalists are the soul of the group, with clear, young-sounding voices that seem infinitely flexible and perfectly blended.

So, for example, a vaguely Handelian duet from early 19th-century New England called “Herald Angels” was performed with ringing, round-voiced sweetness by soprano Kim Sueoka and tenor Dustin Wirth. But a few minutes later, those two and the others sounded appropriately flat-toned and edgy while singing “Star in the East,” a rural Southern song with almost shouted-out inflections.

Not all of the music on the program is purely American – which says more about the universality of vocal music than anything else. For some of the more secular holiday songs, the ensemble turned to John Playford, the 17th-century English “dancing master” whose collections spread across the English-speaking world like an ABBA platinum classic.

Of the Playford selections, the biggest hit at Thursday’s first performance was “Juice of the Barley,” a salute to the salutary effects of whiskey sung by the ensemble’s three glorious sopranos: Sueoka, Heather Cogswell and Kathy Lee. That came near the end of the performance, before the exaltation in Daniel Read’s 17th-century setting of “While Sheperds Watched Their Flocks by Night” and the final sing-along of “Jesus the Light of the World.” To leave a concert humming is a nice thing, especially at this time of the year.

What: “And Glory Shone Around,” early American Christmas concert by the Rose Ensemble

Where: 8 p.m. today, Basilica of St. Mary, Hennepin and 17th Street, Minneapolis; 2 p.m. Sunday, Church of the Nativity, 1900 Wellesley Ave., St. Paul; 7:30 p.m. Monday, Cathedral of Christ the King, 1410 Baxter Ave., Superior, Wis.; 7 p.m. Tuesday, Trinity Lutheran Church, 115 N. Fourth St., Stillwater.

Tickets: $35-$17 at roseensemble.org or 651-225-4340.

The New CD

The new Rose Ensemble CD came out this past week and we’re busy on tour in New England and the Midwest promoting it.  It’s a wonderful disc, if I may say so myself, of Early American music – something that our founder and artistic director thought he would never do.  Well, I’m really glad he did.  It’s a blast to sing and there are numbers that we get to sing (as a friend puts it) “balls to the walls.”

The CD was recorded in a small decommissioned Catholic church building in Iowa City this past August.  A few crickets here and there gave us some trouble, not to mention a few laughs, but for the end result, it’s a great disc.

Appalachian folk instruments, Southern shape-note singing, heartfelt four-part Shaker hymns, and the close harmonies that gave birth to bluegrass. Filled with sounds both familiar and fresh, this holiday concert shines with the warmth of hearth and home.
I had the opportunity to also record a solo on this album by Sister Patsy Williamson, one of the few African-American Shaker women, called “Pretty Home” – an accapella call and response tune with foot stomping.  Take a listen, or download the track!

You can download the new recording from Amazon (I get a little commission on this) – or if you would like to purchase the actual CD, go to www.roseensemble.org