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Franz von Suppe 4/18/1819
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| Randall Thompson 4/21/1899 |
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| Edward K. 'Duke' Ellington 4/29/1899 |
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Mark Your Calendars
April 17, 2018 -
Rockbridge Youth Chorale Spring Concert,
7 PM
Lexington Presbyterian Church
April 29, 2018 -
RCS
with orchestra and soloists,
Mass in B Minor, J. S. Bach
7 PM
Wilson Concert Hall,
Washington and Lee University
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One Gratitude Thing
A triple thank you to everyone who has contributed to our Adopt a Musician fund-raising Campaign. We are almost half-way to 100% of our sponsorship goal. If you or three of your singing buddies would like to sponsor a player, a soloist, or a section 'ringer singer'
please contact Melanie Griffis-Hooper by April 20, 2018 to have your sponsorship acknowledged in the B-Minor program
admin@rcs.org
Still to be adopted: 2 soloists and 2 ringer singers; flute, oboe, viola (2), violin (5), trumpet, bassoon.
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| Soprano 'ringer singer' sponsors Virginia Lloyd-Davies, Pat Tichenor, Melissa Holland and Ruth Floyd. |
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It's Bach
- The Soloists are Coming
The Bach B-Minor Mass is almost ready and we have some star soloists joining the Rockbridge Choral Society for our 2017/2018 season finale. Most are well known to our audience, so let's start with our tenor,
Andrew Fuchs, who joins us for his
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Andrew Fuchs |
debut with our group. He comes to us from his home in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY. Andrew is a native of Kansas City, MO and is a busy soloist and chamber singer, performing frequently with ARTEK, The Thirteen, The Choir of Trinity Wall Street, Musica Sacra, the Clarion Choir and many others. He is a Bach veteran having performed the Evangelist role for the St. Matthew and St. John Passions. He spent two summers as a Vocal Fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center where he studied with Dawn Upshaw. His Doctor of Musical
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Barbara Hollinshead |
Arts degree is from Stony Brook University. We are grateful to our mezzo soprano soloist, Barbara Hollinshead, for recom-mending Andrew to us. We can't wait to hear him! Welcome Andrew!
Also joining us again will be Nate Pence as countertenor. Nate gets the prize for trekking the farthest for this concert! He now resides in Utah where he teaches voice and directs and sings with Consortium, a chamber
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Nate Pence |
ensemble in the Salt Lake Valley. Though Nate loves performing, his passion is teaching and conducting. He is currently finishing his masters degree in choral conducting. Nate is a frequent soloist with us and we are thrilled to have him back for the B-Minor Mass!
What would a major work be without Keith Spencer and his rich baritone.
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Keith Spencer |
And, so, Keith is back with us for the B-Minor. For more about Keith, see our September, 2017 issue. And, not to leave out the ladies, our own Christine Fairfield will be our soprano soloist. Barbara Hollinshead rounds out the field in the mezzo-soprano spot. Both have vast experience with the Bach repertoire. Christine's resume includes performances with the Rockbridge Choral Society, the Louisville Bach Society, the Shenandoah Valley
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Christine Fairfield |
Bach Festival, the Staunton Choral Society and many more. She grew up in Harrisonburg,VA and now resides in Staunton with her husband and four talented daughters.
Barbara Hollinshead began her vocal studies at the knee of her opera-singing mother. Barbara is no stranger to Bach and is a regular guest with The Washington Bach Consort and the Bach Choir of Bethlehem. You might remember that this was the choir which gave the first performance of the B-Minor Mass in the US in 1900. Of course, Barbara was not in that particular choir, but she does have auspicious connections. Barbara made her surprise debut with the RCS for Handel's Israel in Egypt. She was a last minute replacement for an ailing countertenor, ever after known to us as the Barber of C'ville (his day job was as a hairdresser in Charlottesville). But we digress. Barbara comes back to us performance after performance because she has made fast friends in music here in Lexington. And, for this performance, the chorus is lucky to have her son Ned as a ringer in the tenor section.
So, come and hear the RCS and these wonderful musicians perform this extra-ordinary work on Sunday, April 29 at Wilson Hall in the Lenfest Center for the Performing Arts. The performance is at 7 PM. If you already have a ticket, plan to be there by 6:55 to insure you get a seat.
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Claude Debussy |
One Cool Thing
Last month on the 100th anniversary of Claude Debussy's death on March 25, 1918, Warner Classics released what it says is "the most complete collection ever made" of Debussy's music. Included in the collection is a set of piano rolls made by Debussy himself around 1913 on a Welte-Mignon reproducing piano (basically a player piano). One of these rolls contains his composition, La plus que lente, roughly translated as 'the even slower waltz'. This piece's syncopated rhythms and elastic melodic lines hint of a musical style to come- jazz. No surprise that jazz musicians are drawn to Debussy. We hear Gershwin.
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