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The 29th season of the Lake Superior Chamber Orchestra has closed, but it certainly went out with a loud splash. Five small groups from the Quartet Project were scattered around Mitchell Hall on the St. Scholastica campus, playing away as patrons moved toward the auditorium. These twenty-two young string players then joined the ensemble for the first two pieces on the program.

Left and right side orchestras shared “Supermaximum,” a 2011 composition by American Kenji Bunch depicting musical aspects of slave and prison labor from the camps of the Depression Era South. The hammers and axes were replaced by gospel tunes and Motown melodies, but by the end, the grueling sounds of the chain gang workers returned. Fortunately, this was not the final piece on the program.
BOTTLE memory outlasted the music
A California animator, Kristen Lepore, created a short film in 2010 depicting a sand bunny and a snow bunny communicating their experiences through an ocean-going Bottle. Australian composer, Katherine Corecig saw the animation - as did a million other viewers - then composed “Passacaglia/Bottle” to accompany the video. We were treated to a large screen version of the waves and the communicators, while the LSCO played the score live. The effect was quite pleasing, though at this writing, I remember the video much more clearly than the music.
A bubbling presentation of eight “Fleurs de France” followed, composed by Germaine Tailleferre, a much neglected composer from the first half of the twentieth century. These colorful musical pictures allowed oboe, French horn, clarinet, flute, trumpet, and strings to create very special images from Lavender to Roses in a variety of waltz and two-step rhythms.

Main Street America sings its way into Duluth

Duluth-born soprano, Emily Van Evera, has found a very special niche in the London environment of 16th/17th century music, as well as contemporary songs. She sang nine songs by American composer Charles Ives, who sold life insurance and wrote music that was very experimental around 1900. Orchestrated by Andrew Parrott, Jonathan Williams, and Warren Friesen, most of these songs were world premieres in this chamber orchestra format.
The crystal clear voice of Van Evera seemed very happy in the varied world of Ives, even though she was sometimes overwhelmed by the modest orchestra on stage. She sampled meditative songs, spirituals, and Main Street marches from the New England spirit of this unique composer. Seventeen singers from the Twin Ports Choral Project joined in the rowdiness of The Circus Band and The Celestial Country.

Four sacred pieces by two Slovakian composers added a rich, harmonic flavor to the evening. Jan Bella created a setting of the Ave Maria, and some verses from Psalm 40. Van Evera sang these intensely, before moving to the even more intense music of Vladimir Godar. Godar has done much to make Bella’s music more available, but his own 2010 oratorio, Querela Pacis, (Complaint of Peace)  is much more powerful. The excerpt ‘Domine exaudi’ (hear me, O Lord), was the most moving music of the evening.

If you are a classical music lover, I call your attention to the 7:30pm Friday, August 7 performance by the Northshore Philharmonic at Fregeau Auditorium on the Marshall School Campus. Conductor Tracy Gibbens will share music of Rimsky- Korsakov, Richard Wagner, a viola concerto by Karl Stamitz, and the powerful third Symphony (Espansiva) by Danish composer Carl Nielsen. This might be your last dose of live classical music before the DSSO opener on September 12.

Finally, go to www.dsso.com, open the ‘community’ tab, and click on the Bridge Sessions. Listen to the bands, vote for your choice before August 31, and share in this novel approach to new music by the Duluth Superior Symphony Orchestra.