Past Events > Voces Unidas Tour to Guatemala and Mexico

The 2009 Voces Unidas Tour took the Yale Alumni Chorus to Guatemala and Mexico. Chorus director, Jeffrey Douma, rehearsed us intensively in the splendid Casa Santo Domingo in La Antigua Guatemala, in preparation for a packed schedule of concerts and travel.

On this tour we had the thrill of performing two beautiful new commissioned pieces. The first, commissioned by the Chorus, is by the U.S. composer René Clausen. Titled Prayer, it is a setting of a text by Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The second, entitled Tú, is by Mexican composer Jorge Córdoba Valencia, is a setting of a nineteenth century poem by Amado Nervo. It was commissioned for YAC as a gift from our friends at Classical Movements. The Chorus had the great privilege of participating in a workshop with Maestro Córdoba prior to the premiere performance of Tú.

The initial performance of the tour was in the tiny village of Santiago Zamora, Guatemala. Inspired by YAC, a local charity known as CasaSito had organized a choral competition for the youngsters of surrounding rural villages in the area about an hour’s ride out of La Antigua Guatemala. Local teachers who had never before thought of teaching choral singing had responded to the competition by forming and rehearsing choirs of kids, ranging from tiny tots to teenagers. A preliminary competition before our arrival had whittled down the contestants to five choirs. They were all terrific and adorable, and they, rather than we, were the stars of the show. The whole town turned out for the festival, with booths selling handicrafts and delectable local foods. The children choristers then came to town the next night to sit in the front section of our audience for our concert.

Our concert in La Antigua Guatemala was honored by the presence not only of the children from the choral competition, but also of Ambassador Stephen McFarland and his family. The concert was held in the spectacular outdoor Chapel at Casa Santo Domingo, a partially restored convent ruin. We shared the stage with the engaging Coro Belga, a girls’ chorus from the Belgian High School in Guatemala City.

In Mexico City, YAC had its first radio concert, taped before a live studio audience, at Instituto Mexicano de la Radio, for broadcast on Opus, 94.5 FM. We also did a ride-out to Puebla, where we performed at the Teatro de la Ciudad. That concert concluded with singing the traditional Mexican song Convidando Está la Noche with the talented Coro Municipal de Puebla, at breakneck pace – quite an eyeopener for YAC. The highlight of our time in Mexico City was our concert at Sala Nezahualcóyotl, the magnificent concert hall on the campus of Mexico’s largest university. We performed Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Laudate Dominum with the excellent Milenium Sinfonietta, conducted by Jesús Medina. The balance of the program, conducted by Jeffrey Douma, was a capella and included our two commissioned pieces, Fenno Heath’s The Lamb, various spirituals and folk songs of Mexico and America, and Yale songs.

We then travelled north to San Miguel de Allende, a charming town of historical significance, now home to many artists and American expatriates. We performed our final concert to a standing-room-only crowd in the Church of San Francisco, under the auspices of the San Miguel Chamber Music Festival. In this performance we collaborated with American organist John Stump, who had transcribed the orchestra score for the Mozart, to excellent effect. The effusive audience called for encores, and we brought tears to more than one eye as we reprised the Mexican favorite, La Golondrina.

Ellen Marshall, Tour Producer