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2011-2012
Concert Season
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July 23, 2011
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October 1, 2011
Carmina Burana
October 14 - 16, 2011
with The Florida Orchestra
Andrea Bocelli
December 4, 2011
St. Pete Times Forum
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December 9 - 11, 2011
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January 6 - 8, 2012
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Delius' Sea Drift and Appalachia: Variations on an Old
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The Peace
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March 30 -
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Dr. James K. Bass
Music and Artistic Director
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Critics Corner
Composer's infectious melodies
flatter chorus
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
© St. Petersburg Times
published February 23, 2003
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TAMPA -- The Master Chorale of Tampa Bay performed music of Eleanor Daley on
Friday night, and it came as something of a revelation. Not many people in the
audience at Lake Magdalene United Methodist Church could have been familiar with
the Canadian composer, but they surely went away from the concert wanting to
hear more from her.
Daley, director of music at Fairlawn Heights United Church in Toronto, worked
with the chorus during the week and was in attendance for Friday's program,
which included two of her a cappella works.
But first the chorale had an American classic to sing. Under director Richard
Zielinski, the evening opened with The Peaceable Kingdom by Randall Thompson.
With text from Isaiah, the cantata is a difficult one and showed that the chorus
was in fine form. Singers handled the emphatic, almost surreal phrasing of
"pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them" in the third movement with aplomb.
In the fifth movement, there was a lovely part for the soprano section, floating
in counterpoint over the rest of the choir. The finale had one of Thompson's
trademark crescendos, as "and gladness of heart" repeated and built in intensity
to satisfying effect.
The premiere of Daley's Listen to the Sunrise, which the chorale commissioned,
featured a substantial role for the Tampa Bay Children's Chorus and the Gulf
Coast Children's Choir. The adult and children's choirs alternated in taking the
lead in the short work, which has lyrics by Kenneth I. Morse. It's an impeccably
well-made piece, with smooth structural symmetry and a sweet sound, especially
the bell-like tones of the children's voices.
Zielinski did a good job of keeping the combined choirs in synch, considering
that the children were separated from the Master Chorale by quite a distance at
the side of the sanctuary.
Daley's Requiem, named outstanding new choral composition by the Association of
Canadian Choral Conductors in 1994, got a great performance. Among the soloists
was Lisa Watson, whose focused soprano brought a suitably lyrical quality to
modern poetry by Carolyn Smart.
Daley worked an inventive mix of texts into her Requiem. Along with Smart's
poetry, sources include the Latin Missa pro defunctis, a Russian benediction,
the Book of Common Prayer and Psalm 130. The fourth movement is a graceful
setting of Mary Elizabeth Frye's In Remembrance, touching consolation on the
loss of a loved one.
Daley has a flexible, deceptively simple writing style that flattered the
chorus, as all sections sounded wonderfully nimble and light in her infectious
melodies. The eight-movement Requiem generated considerable momentum as it went
along, and reaching the gentle finale left the listener feeling absolutely at
peace.
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