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Choral Arts to unveil new work

Composer Jason Bahr

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By Andrew McGinn, Staff Writer Updated 3:29 PM Friday, November 13, 2009

SPRINGFIELD — Between what the Springfield Symphony Orchestra is doing this season — performing the work of a living composer at each concert — and now Choral Arts of Springfield, contemporary composers might start hanging around Springfield like bears at Yellowstone circa 1959.

They know they can get a handout here.

“There are so few that make a living at this,” said Robert Sedoris, Choral Arts’ sympathetic conductor. “It’s hard to accept the new stuff sometimes.”

So, like tossing a $2,000 picnic basket out the back of the station wagon, the local vocal ensemble decided to throw a commission toward Jason Bahr, a composer who makes his real living as an assistant professor of music theory and composition at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Choral Arts will premiere Bahr’s “Run, Shepherds, Run” at a holiday-themed concert on Sunday, Nov. 15, at Christ Episcopal Church.

While the commission is “expensive by our standards,” Sedoris said, it’s also invaluable.

“One of our missions,” he said, “is to stimulate the growth of new, contemporary music.”

Bahr’s work for chorus, brass quintet, timpani and organ — set to 17th century poetry by William Drummond — marks the first commission by Choral Arts.

Bahr got the job because he’s one of their own. He sings with Choral Arts, one of several Ohio Wesleyan connections to the professional ensemble, whose 26 voices hail from 10 counties.

“It’s important to know a composer if you have the opportunity,” Sedoris said.

The entire program on Sunday is a contemporary one, meaning that, as of this writing, every composer is still not dead.

Springfield native Kiki Follrath Wilson, rehearsal conductor and German diction coach under the late, great Robert Shaw in the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, will act as guest conductor on a few pieces.

In addition, the Springfield High School Women’s Chamber Choir will join with Choral Arts on the program’s major work, Z. Randall Stroope’s “Cantus Natalis.”

As for the commissioned piece, Sedoris concedes there’s no telling how the audience will take to it.

“I do know it’s going to blow the roof off the church,” he promised.

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0352 or amcginn@coxohio.com.