Jacob Hammonds

Men's Chorus
December 8, 2014

November 11, 2014

University Singers Concert Report

Crucifixus by Antonio Lotti was a good start to he concert. I liked the harmonic content of this piece
a lot. Clusters and dissonant suspensions work very well in a choral setting and the composer utilized
the choirs strengths well. The ending to this piece was awesome.

I liked Ave verum corpus Frederik Sixten. I think the text lent itself to the choral setting. The
conductor took this piece at just the right tempo. The choir blended well and sounded like a unit. No
voices stick out more than others. Parts of this piece sounded like Mahler to me.

Exsultate, Jubilate by Karl Jenkins was a good use of the march genre. In choir concerts it is easy to
loose drive due to the lack of rhythmic pieces. I think this piece sat well in this part of the concert. The
choir performed this piece well, adding contrast to sections that repeat. I think this piece also references
Beethoven's fifth symphony. I was impressed by the sopranos at the end of this piece.

La carpe, Lecrivisee, and Le pont mirabeau by Lionel Daunais were good pieces. The first piece
started out sounding a bit like Debussy, which I liked. The chorus seemed like they had run out of
steam abit after the last piece, but picked it up as the piece went on. The second piece in this set was
more rhythmic and picked up the pace of the concert which was a good choice. The third song in the

work wrapped up this composers section of the concert well. I enjoyed the three pieces by Daunais.

I liked the soloist at the beginning of Through Bushes and Through Briars by Donald James, she did
a good job opening the piece. The male soloist did a good job as well. This piece didn't stick out to me
as being particularly interesting. I felt as if I had already heard pieces similar to this one in the concert
already.

Mui Rendra by Pinto Fonseca was a nice change of pace. It was nice to hear a work referencing the
latin tradtion. I did feel as if the rhythm caused some intonation issues throughout the chorus. The
energy of this work however overshadowed any technical issues.

I liked work of the arranger on Shenandoah by James Erb. The intro using an un-orchestrated melody
was nice. The chorus did a good job performing this piece. I got the sense that the singer felt more
connected to this piece than the others. I also liked the use of a one beat cannon, it created a nice
textural effect.

Feller from Fortune by Harry Somers seemed a bit corny to me. I don't normally enjoy long form
wordy pieces. I thought this work took far too long and I felt my self tuning out of this piece. I
understand it was supposed to be light and humorous but humor in music is something that really must
be handled carefully. I couldn't really understand the words to this piece which kind of ruined it for me.

Drifting Gently Through Endless Beauty by Kevin Walczyk was an ambitious choice due to the lengthe
an complexity. I liked this piece quite a bit. The conductor led the work well and the chorus conductor

interplay was obvious. I liked the use of the harp in this piece. Some of the woodwind perts seemed out
of place and the chorus seemed to be fighting them for the spot light. The soloist on this piece did a
great job. She was very charismatic and sold the pice well. I was also impressed by the composers use
of percussion. I liked this piece even though I thought it was a bit lengthy. This piece served as a solid
finish to the concert which I enjoyed.