Concert Review: Skylark Vocal Ensemble — Sublime Storytime

Each Skylark Vocal Ensemble concert I’ve heard has been an extraordinary experience, from the music chosen, to the artfully designed program booklets, the preconcert talks by the group’s eloquent artistic director/conductor Matthew Guard, and, most importantly, the ravishing voices of its 20 or so extraordinary singers. After each performance, I think, “Well, this can’t be topped.” But on Saturday at Chestnut Hill’s Church of the Redeemer, Skylark took on what Guard called “probably one of our most off-the-wall” concepts: a story-choral concert featuring the gifted storyteller (who has worked with Skylark on four previous projects) Sarah Walker. The performance took place on Valentine’s Day, which also happened to be the release day of Skylark’s brand new CD, Once Upon a Time.

For the concert (and the disc) Guard and Walker chose two fairy tales, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Little Mermaid.” Each of the yarns was cut by Walker to last a half hour. Neither narrative bore much resemblance to its upbeat Disney version. “We felt we were creating something new, a seamless choral/storytelling experience in which the music enhanced the story,” Guard explained. “A lot of choral pieces are very short and in different languages. What if we could pick some stories that people think they know and put them with music they don’t know?”

In “Snow White,” Guard explained, “We were going for a spooky, scary vibe,” which he found in Francis Poulenc’s “Un soir de neige” (A Night of Snow), which is set in a terrifying forest in winter. Three other pieces of Poulenc ended up being included. Other composers whose music was chosen to illustrate the stories were Leonard Bernstein (“Court Song”), Ralph Vaughan Williams  (“Three Shakespeare Songs”), Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, Einojuhani Rautavaara, Velmo Tormis, the popular  choral composer Morten Lauridsen, and Robert Lucas de Pearsall, whose Victorian piece “Lay a Garland” was used for when the dwarfs put Snow White in a glass coffin. “The music chose the stories,” said Guard. Skylark’s stitching and dovetailing ends up working seamlessly because of composer Benedict Sheehan, who was given the task of connecting the dots. He enhanced the dialogue by writing a musical score that was played underneath the storyteller’s voice,  serving up transitions from one song to another. His 14 short compositions work uncannily well, particularly those made for “Snow White.”

Read full review at artsfuse.org