| CONTENTS Introduction
WTH = W. Thomas Huyck CM = Christopher Moore |
23 - 1975Helene Curtis concert WTH: I'm going to skip back a bit here to the summer of 1975 and the Helene Curtis concert. CM: There was an enormous professional convention of beauticians and people in cosmetology. And the Helene Curtis people wanted to do a production that would be a "go out and sell" for all of their people who would be gathering from all over the country. And, you know, they hired a music staff -- they hired a whole crew of people to put themselves together a show. And it had a lot of popular songs; it had a jazz band; and it followed the candlelight processional idea that we used at Christmas, which I believe had to be electric because of Chicago fire laws and they were in a hotel ballroom, but to get a formation that surrounded this audience of however many hundred people with a singing choir bearing candles in an enormous circle. It was to celebrate love and brotherhood and sisterhood, as well as Helene Curtis products...you know, a new world, a great world, a morning that would obviously use Helen Curtis products for their cosmetology. We all landed up, I remember, with a special fragrance shampoo, and one of the reasons that I remember it was that when I tried using it outdoors, I found that bees loved it and would make a beeline from a rather great distance to try sampling it on my head. But the context of this event -- we hoped -- would be prototypical in a way that it has not been at any time since: namely, that we could be a resource to major industrial shows that wanted to do a kind of extravaganza that involved choir and choral material. Because we did use a few pieces of our repertoire. We had a creative tugging session in the planning process, trying to limit just how much outside music we would use. Trying to get them to use some of what we had and to make a compromise that let us use a few elegant things that were definitely us, as well as put together some things that they needed to carry their message. And it worked out not too badly. The fee was a few thousand dollars; in other words, this was a major enterprise. 1978Chichester Psalms | Erik CharlstonWe will need to check with our records on this, but I think it was along about the spring of 1978 or the winter of 1978 that we did our own performance project which included Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. It was occasioned by the interest of a temple in having this work performed for a festival that they were doing. And Ivy agreed to prepare it. We'd had such an exciting time with [Bernstein's] Mass that we felt that the style was comfortable for us. We had a strength that we have seldom had since in our men's chorus that allowed us to deal with the sonorities of that work, even the fabulous section for the second setting that has a tour de force segment for the men's voices in parts. Erik Charlston, who was one of our baritones, was also a fine percussionist. He did the percussion on this. And we then did it here at home -- that was a major work, a major accomplishment. About a year later, I believe, we provided the boy soloist for a Chichester at the St. Louis Conservatory. |