Given that we've all heard holiday music playing everywhere there are speakers since Halloween, seasonal concerts should either present unfamiliar music or serve up the usual chestnuts in the utmost sonic splendor. The Choral Arts Society of Washington, under Artistic Director Norman Scribner and with the support of the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, gave its audience a bit of both Monday night in the Kennedy Center's well-decked Concert Hall.
The choristers essayed a couple of recent songs; Choral Arts Society singer John Pickard's "The Flow're of Peace" illuminated its text with carefully juxtaposed passages for soloist and full chorus and shimmering orchestral textures suggesting a pastoral dawn. A few non-Christmas vocals, such as a Giovanni Gabrieli motet and selections from Handel's oratorio "Samson," found their way onto the program; the American Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, playing a couple of selections on its own under its music director, Luis Haza, gave Franz von Suppe's Overture to "Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna" the same high spirits that it gave to Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride."
Familiar carols sneaked in toward the end of the concert, with the audience invited to join the chorus and orchestra in effectively massive arrangements. Mixed in among these were two striking solos for soprano Janice Chandler-Eteme: Italian composer Pietro Yon's "Gesu Bambino" and the spiritual "Sweet Little Jesus Boy." Chandler-Eteme had earlier sounded rushed in the quicksilver runs of Handel's "Let the Bright Seraphim," but she used her creamy tone, sensitive feeling for melodic contour and beautifully sustained quiet notes to make these two passionate songs sound like potential holiday chestnuts.
The program will be repeated on Sunday at 8:30 p.m. and on Dec. 23 at 1:30 p.m.
-- Andrew Lindemann Malone
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