Canisius Chorale do Scarlet Tide

[johnfoyle]

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20 ... 058252.asp

The Buffalo News

Canisius Chorale ends season on high note

By GARAUD MacTAGGART
NEWS CONTRIBUTING REVIWER
5/9/2005

CONCERT REVIEW
Canisius College Chorale, directed by Frank Scinta
Saturday in the Montante Cultural Center.


The season/semester-ending concert by the Canisius College Chorale recapped elements of previous programs, while highlighting how much more polished the ensemble has become in the years since Frank Scinta took over the choir's direction.
When the Chorale started out, there was an admirable enthusiasm but little in the way of the kind of discipline that makes a concert rewarding for both listener and performer. Nowadays the group's vocal lines are held with a subtle blend of firmness and flexibility, diction is clear, and it has developed a stage presence that, if not as totally polished as it would be with a professional choir, has improved substantially.

Saturday's recital was an interesting blend of material, all of it chosen by the choir members from the group's programs of the last two seasons. It was a mix of sacred and profane works - blending gospel, show tunes, settings of folk songs and scores by classical composers.

While there were a number of choral favorites sung, including the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's "Messiah" and a fairly clever arrangement of Duke Ellington's "It Don't Mean a Thing," it was often the less overtly heralded pieces that made the biggest impression.

Some of the more arresting, recent works on the program included Morten Lauridsen's "Dirait-on" and Ernani Aguiar's "Salmo 150," both of which are scores that show up fairly frequently on modern choral programs even though they may not register with most people the way that Handel or Ellington would.

It should be noted, however, that an arrangement of "The Scarlet Tide," a piece originally written for a movie ("Cold Mountain") by rock star Elvis Costello and producer-to-the-stars Henry "T-Bone" Burnett, was the most outright surprising element of the concert by virtue of its authorship.

All in all, this last concert by the Canisius College Chorale gave substantial reason to expect continued improvement and a great many fine programs to come.

[bobster]

This was probably beautiful and very appropriate but, admit, what we all really want to hear are choral versions of "No Action," "Watching the Detectives" and "Goon Squad."

[scielle]

Reminds me of that god-awful SATB arrangement of Sarah McLachlan's Angel we had to sing in high school choir once. It was quite deardfull. Thankfully the evening was saved by William Byrd's stunning Ave Verum Corpus, and Paul Halley's Freedom Trilogy.

[daybreaker]

I once sat through a college a capella group rendition of Alison. It wasn't pretty.