Community voices, commitment bring 'Psalms of Praise and Peace'

Martha Smith
Posted 3/12/15

When the members of the Rhode Island Civic Chorale, 90 voices strong accompanied by some 25 musicians, take center stage at the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul on Saturday night they will represent …

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Community voices, commitment bring 'Psalms of Praise and Peace'

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When the members of the Rhode Island Civic Chorale, 90 voices strong accompanied by some 25 musicians, take center stage at the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul on Saturday night they will represent an array of age groups and experience.

The chorale and orchestra will take on a program called “Psalms of Praise & Peace” at 7:30 p.m. at the Fenner Street location that will feature winners of the 7th Annual Collegiate Vocal Competition, what marketing co-chairperson, Carole Del Bonis calls the “American Idol of classical music.”

Featured will be Sierra Marcy, soprano, a sophomore at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Mass., Jordan Swett, Mezzo, a junior at the University of Connecticut, Alexander Sheerin, a tenor at the New England Conservatory and John Brakatselos, a baritone, a senior at Brown University.

There will also be a healthy gathering of singers from Warwick and Cranston, some who’ve sung all their lives, others who took it up in college and more who excused themselves to raise children.

Some have been chorale members for 30 years while others, so-called “newbies” have only four or five years under their belts. The rehearsals for a single concert take three months of weekly meetings that last from two and a half to three hours with one 15-minute break.

If that seems grueling, says longtime member Peggy Menna of Cranston, quoting conductor Dr. Edward Markward, “This isn’t bowling night, you know.”

Retired from the music department of Rhode Island College, Markward is approaching his 30th year at music director of the chorale.

Albert Meyer is a relative newcomer and is in his fourth season singing baritone with the group. He’s an electrical engineer and program manager who sang for several seasons with the Long Island Philharmonic Chorus and the Long Island Masterworks Chorus.

“I started singing relatively late in life after my wife and I joined the Babylon United Methodist Church on Long Island and I was convinced to join their choir by an old friend.” These days he’s singing at the United Methodist Church in East Greenwich.

He’s a card-carrying music lover, attending everything from the Boston Symphony and RI Philharmonic concerts to the Tanglewood Music Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival.

Meyer is currently on the chorale’s board and is the organization’s web master WWW.RICCO.ORG.

John Campellone, MIS director for Cranston Public Schools, is a bass who has been a chorale member for a dozen years. “I sing low,” he says, with emphasis. “We have women in the tenor range. Harmonies from such a mix of voices in different ranges are very rich sounding, interesting and beautiful. The voices and instrumentation are exhilarating.”

He notes that occasionally the chorale sings pieces that have been commissioned. “The audience is excited because it’s always well-performed. We have dress rehearsals but comes the time we actually have to perform, everything is extra focused. It’s very rewarding to see it all come together.

“That’s why we do it.”

Joanne Pirolli, a retired kindergarten teacher from Cranston, is one of the members who has always sung but had been on a sort of vocal sabbatical when she auditioned for the chorale eight years ago.

She had started as a music major in college but the competition was so heavy she switched to early education. “I’m still one of the newbies,” says the soprano of her chorale work. “I did a lot of singing in college but I got away from it. I started taking voice lessons but I hadn’t auditioned in 20 years. It took a lot of courage and I’m still thrilled because I feel like I fit in very well.”

Pirolli, who counts among her favorite pieces the Brahms Requiem (“so challenging and so rewarding”) and Mendelssohn’s Elijah, says sometimes the best exercise is tackling something she doesn’t like so well and learning from it.

The broad spectrum of ages is what really makes it work.

“It’s a nice mix. Some people have been in for 30 years and give it a bit of a foundation for the young kids coming in.” She is excited to hear the scholastic winners who will all be singing Mozart.

The thing that causes nightmares about performing on such a large scale is that somehow you’ll sing out of turn; coming in too soon can make you wake up screaming.

“You’re always counting, counting, so you don’t come in at the wrong time,” says Pirolli. “That’s live music.”

The Rhode Island Civic Chorale was founded in 1957 and sets the bar very high for an audience that’s a mix of discerning listeners and newcomers to classical music. This program is no different, including Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore, Nelson’s Requiescat and Durufle’s Four Motets on Gregorian Themes.

Dylan O’Leary, a Warwick baritone who has been singing with the chorale for four years, is a graduate of Rhode Island College where he earned a bachelor of arts in singing. He spent his senior year studying under Markward.

“He’s my voice teacher and knows my voice. I had auditioned for him before.” O’Leary, who works in IT support in the corporate offices of CVS, says he “actually prefers German and Italian” among the languages the chorale must learn. “Hearing it and relating to it are still difficult,” he says. “Latin is much like Italian; you say what you see. I enjoy all of them.”

He finds the Chichester Psalms, which are on Saturday’s program, especially lovely. “Bernstein does it so easily,” he says. “There’s great artistry in the contrast of the beautiful women’s voices then the men come in with Why Do the Nations Rage.”

How’s this for an unexpected benefit? O’Leary met his fiancé, Rachel Naylor, in the civic chorale.

Nick O’Donohoe, of Cranston, can certainly count himself among the veterans: He’s in his 25th year. “I started after I heard them do Beethoven’s 9th with the philharmonic. My wife saw a notice in the paper for auditions” A graduate in music and English from Carleton College in Minnesota, he’s 62 and a second tenor.

There’s a high degree of difficulty in the pieces selected for performance.

“They’re all difficult if they’re worth doing,” he says. “Dr. Markward meticulously marks it up and sends it on a PDF file. The thing I find most difficult is singing in German.” There’s help available, he says, in the form of a YouTube guide to German instruction and performance. Additionally, one of the members posted some good lessons to Hebrew. “We walk through pronunciations.”

O’Donahoe, who lives in Cranston, is a technical writer which he also taught along with industrial public relations. “It’s a lot of fun.”

He confesses to an abiding fondness for Handel’s Messiah which the chorale performs on alternate years. “The chorale is known for it. I never get tired of it. This spring we’re doing Bach’s Mass in B Minor. I’m so looking forward to it. We’ll work on it for two months.”

O’Donahoe practices at home every day, noting, “If you go to rehearsal and you haven’t vocalized you’ll burn yourself out.”

Peggy Menna of Cranston, a singer since 1987 and a member of the chorale board for 26 years was a voice major at RIC and a student of Markward. After having her daughter, she went to Bryant for her MBA. She taught at both CCRI and Bryant. She sings with the chorale and with the choir at Immaculate Conception church.

“I love my friends at Immaculate Conception,” she says. “Chorale is very demanding. Singing with Ed you need to rise to a certain standard. The Messiah is very long but it’s also my favorite. Many people would say that. It’s different each time. New people come in, some leave. Every other year, when September rolls around it’s like the start of a semester; getting ready for the holidays.

“It has huge importance. I think I’d rather be singing it than listening. I have listened to my colleagues sing and it was tremendous. It’s so much work and then it comes to fruition. It’s glorious music and a privilege to sing it. If you’re spiritual it’s an emotional thing.”

By the time the members get to performance night, Menna says, everyone knows the music and is comfortable with it. “All eyes are on Ed.”

After all these years she says it’s the “camaraderie, the people” and the capacity to make lasting friendships.

And you’re always learning, she says. “That’s the challenge.”

Psalms of Praise & Peace” will begin at 7:30 pm Saturday at the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul, 30 Fenner St. Providence. Parking is free. Admission: $25; seniors $22; students $10 with ID. For more information contact 521-5670, or www.ricco.org.

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