By Sean Leviashvili
The 12 stained glass windows in the Fenway Center project colored light into the church every afternoon. But last night, the lights were on the NU Choral Society – stagelights, that is.
Preparing for their Spring Concert since the beginning of the semester, the group’s 59 members performed orchestral renditions of well known poems in a presentation entitled, “The Road Not Taken: American Choral Classics.” The group attracted an audience of more than 270 people, consisting of some students, but mostly the performers’ parents and relatives.
The attendance was impressive, said Deni Chen, an usher at the Fenway Center.
“I knew a lot of the audience members would be parents,” said Chen, a freshmen international affairs major. “However, I was surprised to see a few students [as well].”
Some students said they attended in support of their friends, including Rachel Freeman, a senior business major.
“My boyfriend’s in the choir,” she said after the choral group performed “Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland,” originally conducted by Irving Fine, who passed away in 1962, and Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road,” created by Normal Dello Joio. “But I’m still a little doubtful about how the Frost poems will come out.”
About halfway through the two-hour performance, the Choral Society, accompanied by an orchestra of about 20, performed composer Randall Thompson’s interpretations of seven of Robert Frost’s poems, including the performance’s title piece, “The Road Not Taken,” and others including “A Girl’s Garden,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and “Choose Something Like a Star.”
The Frost poems were the last to be performed, and as the members finished, they were met with a standing ovation, lasting about two minutes.
But Frost was not the only poet whose work was put to song last night. Poetry originally written by Lewis Carrol, including “The Lobster Quadrille” and the “Lullaby of the Duchess” were incorporated in “Three Choruses from Alice in Wonderland” and “Song of the Open Road,” which was the lyrical context of Joio’s composition, was introduced by the music director responsible for last night’s performance, music department professor Joshua Jacobson.
“[I am proud] to introduce the muscular music that captures the sentiment of Walt Whitman’s quintessential verses,” he said.
The rendition of Whitman’s poem began with the male vocalists singing the verses, and the female vocalists following in an echo. It later drifted into unison and was broken up with piano solos.
Presenting poems musically was a new idea to some audience members, including Tony Coard, a senior civil engineering major, while others, like Sean O’Blenig, a member of the Choral Society, were more familiar with the idea.
“It’s a pretty interesting concept,” Coward said during one of the intermissions, “I like it. I went to the winter concert, which was more religious, more of a mass, and I love what they did both times.”
O’Blenig, a senior mechanical engineering major who has been singing tenor for the Choral Society since spring 2005, said he had sung poems before, but not since performing in high school. This concert was an opportunity for him to try it out again, he said. The Choral Society has been practicing consistently since early January, he said.
“Once a week, every Wednesday,” he said. Parents, including Barbara Koski, who drove from southern Connecticut to see her son perform, said the performers had, once again, done an excellent job. “I came out to see the last concert, which was phenomenal,” Koski said. “This concert was a little lighter than their last one, but it still takes a lot of time and dedication to perform as well as they can.”
