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Quire Cleveland: Carols for Quire X (Dec. 21)

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by David Kulma

In Paris, 1534, Pierre Attaingnant published a book of motets that utilized the aptly named “O Antiphons.” His Motettorum Liber Book 7 includes six Advent antiphons, which are traditionally sung at Vespers from December 17 through 23, one per evening. Derived from the prophecies of Isaiah, each begins with “O” and names a specific attribute of the Messiah — Sapientia (Wisdom), Adonai (Lord), Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse), Clavis David (Key of David), Oriens (Daystar), Rex Gentium (King of Nations), and Emmanuel (God with us). They are best known in the hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” which brings them all together to create one beautiful Christmas carol.

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Quire Cleveland: Jay White talks about Carols for Quire X

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by Daniel Hathaway

There are myriad ways to organize a concert of carols. For Quire Cleveland’s tenth “Carols for Quire” program, to be presented by his professional singers in three venues from December 20-22, conductor Jay White turned to Renaissance settings of ancient antiphons for structure. “These three concerts are sponsored by the letter O, just like in Sesame Street,” he said in a phone conversation from his studio at Kent State University.

Let’s explain. By the eighth century, the Roman church had developed a series of devotional antiphons to be sung one-per-day during the last week before Christmas as introductions to the Magnificat hymn at Vespers. Derived from the prophecies of Isaiah, each begins with “O” and names a specific attribute of the Messiah — Sapientia (Wisdom), Adonai (Lord), Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse), Clavis David (Key of David), Oriens (Daystar), Rex Gentium (King of Nations), and Emmanuel (God with us).

These antiphons will be familiar to those who know the hymn O come, O come, Emmanuel, a compilation of the “O” antiphons in poetic form which appeared in Germany during the early 18th century, originally with only five stanzas. Paired with a 15th-century French melody in the widely-adopted Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1861, the hymn came into general use in English-speaking countries. [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland — “Ave Maria: England’s Rose” at St. Peter (May 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

To close out their first season under the leadership of Jay White, Quire Cleveland presented “Ave Maria: England’s Rose,” two concerts of early English church music devoted to the cult of the Virgin Mary. On Sunday afternoon, May 5, Quire’s commanding performances reveled in the sumptuous acoustic of Historic St. Peter Church in downtown Cleveland. Appropriately, a statue of the Virgin gazed on nearby. [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland to present “Ave Maria: England’s Rose”

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by Daniel Hathaway

Quire Cleveland’s spring program, to be performed on Saturday, May 4 at 7:30 pm at Lakewood Congregational Church and Sunday, May 5 at 4:00 pm at Historic St. Peter Church in downtown Cleveland, will be devoted to Marian music of the early English church.

Both concerts are free, and will cover a wide range of pre- and post-Reformation music by John Dunstable, Leonel Power, William Cornysh, William Byrd, Richard Dering, Peter Philips, Robert White, and Robert Parsons. Quire is also inviting the public to witness the final polishing of the repertoire by attending a free rehearsal on Friday, May 3 from 6:45 to 9:30 pm at the Lakewood venue (online registration is required).

I reached Quire’s artistic director Jay White by telephone at his studio at Kent State University to chat about the music he has chosen for this program. I began by asking why English music of the period seems so rich in references to Mary. [Read more…]

Les Délices & Quire Cleveland in Charpentier Noëls (Dec. 23)

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by Timothy Robson

In what must have been among the most alluring Christmas music concerts of this season, period instrument ensemble Les Délices (Debra Nagy, director) and Quire Cleveland (Jay White, director) teamed up to present French Baroque music for Christmas, highlighted by the Messe de Minuit (“Midnight Mass”) by Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704). [Read more…]

Les Délices & Quire Cleveland: a conversation with guest conductor Eric Milnes

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by Daniel Hathaway

If you stop to think about it, most of our American Christmas traditions have their roots in British and German culture. Far fewer trace their origins to France, even though colonization brought French influence to a large portion of what is now the United States. Les Délices, Cleveland’s French Baroque ensemble, will join the singers of Quire Cleveland this weekend to explore this less-familiar, Gallic side of Christmas in three concerts of music by Marc-Antoine Charpentier led by guest conductor Eric Milnes.

The concerts, at Holy Trinity Lutheran in Akron on December 21 at 7:30 pm, at Lakewood Congregational on December 22 at 8:00 pm, and Our Lady of Peace on December 23 at 4:00 pm, will be anchored by Charpentier’s unique Midnight Mass on French Noëls. “There are eleven French Noëls incorporated into the Mass either in instrumental interludes or in ingenious interpolations throughout the text,” Milnes said in a telephone conversation. “Almost every main motive is derived from a carol tune. It’s hard for us in our Anglo-German culture to imagine a mass built on Silent Night or Joy to the World.”

Will all those tunes be as familiar to the audience as the carols he mentioned? “Maybe one or two of them have made their way into our holiday traditions, maybe not,” Milnes said. “I have the benefit of working a lot in Québec, so I get to experience more directly how that population relates to the tradition. But these carols are still far less known, far less performed, and far less familiar than their German or English counterparts, even in the Baroque community.” [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland at St. John’s Cathedral (Nov. 2)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Quire Cleveland began its eleventh season on November 2 with new artistic leadership. Under the direction of Jay White, the professional chorus marked the dual celebrations of All Saints Day and All Souls Day with a cleverly devised, masterfully sung program at the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist in downtown Cleveland. [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland: fifteen minutes with new conductor Jay White

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by Daniel Hathaway

Conductor Jay White is leading Quire Cleveland into its second decade this season following the retirement of the professional choir’s founders, Ross W. Duffin and Beverly Simmons. His debut program at St. John’s Cathedral in downtown Cleveland on Friday, November 2 at 7:30 pm is a complex web of music celebrating All Saints and All Souls Days.

White, who toured as a countertenor for eight seasons with Chanticleer, and now serves as professor of voice at Kent State, has put together a program that interleaves Gregorian chants of the Requiem Mass with mass movements by several different Renaissance composers, and memorial motets written in honor of Machaut, Ockeghem, Josquin, and Tallis. The concert will be repeated on Saturday, November 3 at 7:30 pm at St. Sebastian Church in Akron.

In a telephone conversation from his office at the University, White noted that his long experience as a professional vocalist gave him a lot of repertory to choose from. [Read more…]

Quire Cleveland bids adieu to its founders with free retrospective concert at St. John’s

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by Daniel Hathaway

Quire2017BethSegalThe professional singers of Quire Cleveland will end their 10th anniversary season this Saturday evening May 26 at 7:30 pm, with a free concert at St. John’s Cathedral featuring favorite pieces from the ensemble’s repertoire. The event will also mark the retirement of Quire’s founders, Ross W. Duffin and Beverly Simmons, who plan to take up residence both in California and Washington D.C. to be close to their children and grandchildren.

Duffin and Simmons have been catalysts for early music in Cleveland since Duffin’s arrival at Case Western Reserve University in 1978. Among other activities, they produced the Chapel, Court and Countryside concert series at CWRU, and Duffin hosted the National Public Radio program Micrologos: Exploring the World of Early Music. Under his tutelage, a constant stream of early music specialists has emerged from Case over the decades, and Duffin was named Distinguished University Professor last year.

Crowning their achievements, on May 23, Early Music America named Duffin and Simmons as the recipients of the 2018 Howard Mayer Brown Award for lifetime achievement in the field of early music. [Read more…]

Lés Delices and Quire Cleveland: “Let the Heavens Rejoice!” (Apr. 28)

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by Mike Telin

Quire & Les Delices LW RehearsalA long-overdue collaboration between two of the area’s eminent chamber ensembles yielded divine results when Les Délices and Quire Cleveland came together on Saturday, April 28 at Lakewood Congregational Church for “Let the Heavens Rejoice!” The program showcased celebratory French Baroque psalms for 22 voices, 14 instruments, and a quartet of vocal soloists, all under the direction of guest conductor Scott Metcalfe.

[Read more…]

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