ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 22, 1996 TAG: 9603220031
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
From a 17th-century Roman Catholic nun to a 20th-century American baby boomer, there's a lot of variety on the Blacksburg Master Chorale's spring concert program. The one thing they have in common is that all four are women.
Guest conductor Kevin Fenton says he's been collecting good pieces by women composers for years while awaiting an opportunity to program them. He gets his chance in "Women of Song," which the Blacksburg-based community chorus will perform at 8 p.m. Saturday at Blacksburg Baptist Church.
"I just selected women composers because quite honestly there aren't that many and most programs don't feature any women's pieces," said Fenton, who for two years has been director of the Virginia Tech University Concert Choir and the school's Meistersingers. The musician, who grew up and was trained in Kansas, is filling in for the Master Chorale's founding conductor Craig Fields, who is taking time off for other projects.
Female composers are no longer unusual in the late 20th century (even though some of the world's great orchestras, such as the Berlin Philharmonic and the Vienna Philharmonic still refuse to hire female musicians). But when the Italian composer Isabella Leonarda was writing in the mid-to-late 1600s, she was definitely a rarity.
Leonarda was a nun who belonged to the Ursuline order and wrote most of her music for use in worship. Outside the cloister she would likely have had little scope for her talent, but within the nunnery she was able to compose more than 200 works, ranging from choral pieces to trio sonatas and violin sonatas.
The Master Chorale will perform her "Ave Regina caelorum," or "Hail, Queen of Heaven."
"It's a stunningly beautiful piece," said Fenton. "It's reflective of the baroque style but it's unique to her."
Linda Plaut, who teaches humanities at Virginia Tech, is an authority on women composers. Plaut, who has performed music by Leonarda as well as publishing new editions of works by other women composers, says that Leonarda came along at just the right moment.
"She hit at a time in which there were little cracks in the sequestering of nuns. They were getting out on the streets and talking to other people. People were coming to the convent for lessons, and there was a blossoming of nuns who were performers and composers. After [Leonarda's] death the church clamped down again," said Plaut.
Another liturgical piece on Saturday night's program is the "Gloria" of California composer Linda Wells, which was composed 16 years ago for the Master Chorale of Irvine, Calif.
The best-known of the four composers featured in "Women in Song" is Libby Larsen, who visited Roanoke and Blacksburg in October 1989 when the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra performed a suite from her opera "Frankenstein."
"She's hit the right balance between being interestingly contemporary and pretty attractive to most audiences, and that's a tough balance to hit," Plaut said. "She's got a rhythmic energy in her work that very few people have," Fenton said.
The Master Chorale will do Larsen's "The Settling Years," which is a collection of three texts about pioneer life which Larsen set to music. "Comin' to Town" is about cowboys sampling city life after months on the range; "A Hoopla" depicts a barn dance; and "Beneath These Alien Stars" deals with the bonding of the pioneer spirit to the land.
The longest work of the night, which will occupy the entire second half of the concert, is "Five Ontario Folk Songs" by the Canadian composer Ruth Watson Henderson. "This is the centerpiece of the concert, a really exciting work," Fenton said.
Only 6 years old, the work requires a woodwind quintet as well as double choir and will feature Cara Fish, Pat Driscoll, David Jacobsen, David Widder and John Husser on oboe, horn, flute, clarinet and bassoon, respectively.
Fenton, who has worked with amateur choirs all over the country, says he is enjoying his guest turn with the Blacksburg Master Chorale. "They are very positive and work hard just for the joy of singing. And what I find rewarding is the fact that these are mostly mature voices that have a lot of variety and tone colors that you don't get in high school or college choirs, a palette of tone colors that comes from age, from that maturity," he said.
Tickets for Saturday night's program at Blacksburg Baptist Church cost $8 for the general public and $4 for students and senior citizens.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ALAN KIM/Staff. Kevin Fenton, guest conductor of theby CNBBlacksburg Master Chorale, leads a recent rehearsal for the upcoming
concert featuring music by women composers. color.