Home >  A & E

Friday, May 16, 2003

BY Andrew Druckenbrod, Post-Gazette Classical Music Critic

Ahem ... mi mi mi mi meeee ...

Clear your throat and warm up your voice. If you are a closet Pavarotti, but haven't had the time to commit a full season to a choir, now you have the opportunity to sing out.

	SUMMER CHORAL INSTITUTE Session 1, "Choral Masterworks from Vienna" (June 17, 24, July 1, 8); Session 2, "And All That Jazz" (June 19-21); Session 3, "With Sounding Brass" (June 26-29); Session 4, "Songs of Hope and Peace" (July 10-13). Registration is $40-$85. Duquesne University Mary Pappert School of Music, Uptown. 412-454-0800 or sci@bachchoirpittsburgh.org. Public concerts: Kelly-Strayhorn Theater, East Liberty (June 21); Trinity Cathedral, Downtown (June 29); East Liberty Presbyterian Church (July 13).

The Bach Choir of Pittsburgh is again running its Summer Choral Institute, where amateurs and professionals can get together for a limited span to learn and perform choral music. Run by Bach Choir director Brady Allred and assistant conductors, the Institute is four self-contained sessions, three of which conclude with public performances.

Now in its third year, the program has continued to grow. Last summer the number of participants doubled to 400 from the year before.

"We found a great niche," says Allred. "An audience that was anxious to experience and to participate in the arts."

When Allred developed the program, he figured it would be a good way for his singers to keep their voices limber in the summer. "But 90 percent of those who participated were not in the Bach Choir," he says. "And we found that people want to join the Bach Choir at the end of the summer." He has added on average about 25 singers each summer, helping to replace about the same number who leave the pro-am group each year as part of typical turnaround.

Now, the Summer Choral Institute caters more to the non-Bach Choir singer, of many different ages. The number of family sessions has been increased to meet that demand. "Family sessions are for parents and kids, ages 8-18, who meet in morning and afternoon," says managing director Kimi Kawashima. "It's an opportunity for families to participate together and sing a public concert; we had 60 kids come last year." Says Allred, "We learned there are a lot of kids and parents who want to do something together."

Young pre-professional singers are invited to attend, but the focus remains on anyone from the soprano who wants more than her church choir to the bass who sings in the shower. "[It's] even for those who were told when they were young that they couldn't sing," says Allred. "I think everyone should sing. We are trying to reach out to everyone. Deep down in everybody's spirit, there is a desire to share what's inside."

The first session does not have a public performance, allowing anyone with stage fright, or just an interest in reading through masterworks, to do so. The second session features Joe Negri coaching the group to a performance of "Mass of Hope: A Mass in the Jazz Idiom." That's followed by a collaboration with the River City Brass Band and organist Neil Stahurski, to perform John Rutter's "Gloria" and Glenn Rudolph's "The Dream Isaiah Saw." The final session, and you can attend as many as you wish, features a performance of Morten Lauridsen's "Lux Aeterna."

Andrew Druckenbrod can be reached at adruckenbrod@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1750.