by Peggy and Mark Curchack
A YAC event without passports and airfare? Well, that was the case for many, though stalwart YACsters still flew in from the Midwest, the Coast, Alaska, and even Hong Kong, as YAC convened in the Capital City to join the 2014 Serenade! Washington DC Choral Festival. This event, now in its fourth year, is organized by Classical Movements, YAC’s associate for several of its tours. Eight choirs from around the world took part in five separate concerts around metro DC.
For YAC, it was the pretty standard tour drill: long rehearsals to start, with some time off for sightseeing, or rest; the welcome dinner/party; the spontaneous songs at the post-concert afterglows; the farewell singing dinner. And all the time, old friends together at meals, over drinks, in clutches in the hotel lobby, walking to events together. For most of us, this is always like a family reunion. Many worked hard to bring along the handful of newcomers, or re-affiliate with some who had returned to YAC after a long hiatus. Friday evening, about 40 of us traveled to Alexandria to hear four of our counterparts: the Konevets Quartet, a kind of Russian liturgical barbershop group; the Ondrášek Czech Youth and Children Choir, perhaps 50 young women singing with extraordinary precision and charm; VIVA, a mixed youth group from Norway singing barefooted in multiple languages; and Insingizi, three men from Zimbabwe whose performance inevitably had us all singing.
The main event was the Saturday night performance of the Mozart Vespers (Vesperae Solemnis de Confessore) in the Church of the Epiphany in downtown DC. We were joined by a small string orchestra--with some Yale School of Music alums—and two trumpets. Soloists included a DC-based soprano, two 2014 YGC grads at alto and bass, and YAC’s own John Rouse at tenor. The Vespers is a six-movement piece, with some odd chromatics, some challenging counterpoint, and a healthy dose of Mozartian divinity. The first half of that concert featured Wishful Singing, a quintet of Dutch women whose a cappella brilliance impressed everyone. An afterglow in an outdoor dining spot on a balmy DC night turned into the usual YAC singing party. When they arrived, Wishful Singing joined in with numbers we had not yet heard.
As outreach for this event YAC donated $3,000 to the homeless choir at the Church of the Epiphany – the venue for our concert. Every Sunday morning the Church opens its doors to the homeless, providing a place to clean up, worship, and be fed a very nice meal. Our donation provided the resources for more than two months worth of meals. The Sunday worship includes a homeless choir led by an inspirational director who himself was homeless for many years. About 30 YACsters swelled the ranks of the choir for the Sunday service following our concert.
The major musical event for Sunday was the Serenade! Finale – seven groups performing in the glorious Strathmore Music Center in North Bethesda. YAC led off with Motherless Child, Innocent Lamb, and Shenandoah, some of our no-miss standards. We then headed for the balcony to enjoy once more Konevets, Wishful Singing, Ondrášek and Insingizi, and to hear for the first time the Fairfield County Children’s Choir, and Les Petits Chanteurs de Laval (Canada). The show ended with the massed choirs singing two uplifting spriritualesque pieces conducted by Grant Gershon, leader of the Los Angeles Master Chorale. The farewell dinner for all the choruses was back in DC, with the sort of singing we do when we know that there’s no concert the next day.
And so ended another successful YAC venture. Less adventure, but nonetheless full of the satisfaction of being together, of being led by Jeff, and meeting fellow singers from everywhere. In the words of our limericist in residence:
In October 2013 a plan was unfurled:
Onto DC we all would be hurled.
Was a grand Serenade!
And for YAC, tailor made,
To sing with the rest of the world.
