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.
The program was presented by the full VocalEssence chorus and Ensemble Singers, both combining efforts in a difficult program of seldom performed English rep, like C. Hubert H. Parry’s complete “Songs of Farewell,” which was some of the last and greatest music Parry wrote shortly after the turn of the 20th century to Michael Tippet’s “Five Spirituals” from his most celebrated work, A Child of Our Time, to the standard choral war-horse “Let all the World in Every Corner Sing” by Ralph Vaughn Williams.
An intimate discussion was held an hour prior to the concert between Halsey and MPR’s John Birge where we audience members were let in to some of the history of Halsey’s life.
Halsey sang in the choirs of both New College, Oxford and King’s College, Cambridge. And he comes from a long line of choral conductors. His grandfather studied with Charles Stanford and his father, Louis Halsey, worked with the famous English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. His father was a celebrated conductor and musician and collaborated with the likes of Ralph Vaughn Williams frequenting his home while growing up. Halsey grew up singing in church choirs since he was eight and aspired to have a career in choral music.
With a delightful sense of humor and spinner of stories, Simon Halsey brought a warmth and vigor to the grand chorus of 130 and an appealing intimacy to the 32 Ensemble Singers, challenging them with an American premier of a piece he commissioned several years ago by American composer Julian Anderson, “Four American Choruses.”
After the concert I was able to meet Simon Halsey and speak a little bit more with him about the pieces performed and what else he was able to do in the week he was here. Music
Simon Halsey, Lisa Drew & Philip Brunelle after the concert
education is being firmly grasped by the British government of late and with it quite of bit of education outreach. Mr. Halsey brought some of that outreach to the students in the vocal music department at the University of Minnesota and worked with the choruses and conductors. I only wish he had the opportunity to work with our church choir so we could also gain his perspective, especially with all the British rep we perform.
It was a lovely evening and I feel very lucky to have been able to attend and meet one of the greats in the choral world.
Your comments are always appreciated! If you attended this concert I would love to hear your feedback on what you thought.