Festival crescendos with unsung choral masterwork

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

Timothy Carney conducts participants of the Hawai'i Vocal Masterworks Festival during rehearsal at the Mystical Rose Oratory at Chaminade University. The festival culminates this weekend with two concerts. Photos by Andrew Shimabuku • The Honolulu Advertiser

James Perlman, 13, and his teacher, Philip Gottling, will be participating in the weekend concerts.

Tim Carney has been practicing with singers and instrumentalists for more than six weeks.

HAWAI'I VOCAL MASTERWORKS FESTIVAL Featuring a performance of Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Dona Nobis Pacem" 7:30 p.m. Saturday and 4 p.m. Sunday Mystical Rose Oratory, Chaminade University $20 general; $15 military and seniors; $5 students; $35 preferred seating available 263-6341

It's called the Second Annual Hawai'i Vocal Masterworks Festival, and it's under way this week at Chaminade University. But labels are deceiving.

The festival, which has attracted more than 100 musicians and singers — from teens to retirees — is intended to boost awareness in choral singing, to enable singers to perform seldom-heard works, and to provide upstart instrumentalists a chance to work with the pros.

So about 26 professional orchestra musicians (many are first chairs) also are involved, many mentoring student instrumentalists.

It all culminates in two public performances of a significant but rarely heard choral masterwork, Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Dona Nobis Pacem," Saturday and Sunday at Chaminade's Mystical Rose Oratory.

"The festival reflects a cross-section of the singing community," said Timothy Carney, associate professor of music at Chaminade University and founding music director of the Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble, which he has led since 1992.

"We've been practicing for six weeks," he said last week, when about 80-plus singers and up to 40 orchestral members had already signed up for a six-week session. The totals were expected to swell this week, when a crash-course final-week offer attracted more souls interested in singing.

At its simplest, Carney said, the festival — which has attracted a number of Neighbor Island participants — is to do music that nobody else does.

So university students, opera chorus members, choir singers, symphony orchestra regulars — reflecting a cross-section of the singing and playing communities — are aboard to undertake the little-known work with the Latin title (translated as "Grant Us Peace") but English lyrics that Carney calls "beautiful."

"I look for pieces that are beautiful — and never had a hearing here," he said of the format of the festival and its grand finale. "The piece offers such a warm message — the contemplation of what war is, based on a Walt Whitman poem — and it's so topical for our time right now."

It was written before World War II and calls for peace; as the Iraq war continues, it's pertinent and inspirational.

"I hope the public won't be afraid of the work," he said. "The text is deeply moving. And the piece is only 40 minutes long."

Soloists will be sopranos Rosanna Perch and Amy Healey and baritone Buz Tennent.

James Perlman, 13, who has been studying and playing bassoon for 3à years, is participating in the concert with his mentor-teacher, Philip Gottling, who plays contrabassoon in the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. It's his second season as a festival participant.

"I got interested in the bassoon after first seeing an image of a contrabassoon in a visual dictionary," said James from his Spreckelsville, Maui, home. "It looked like a cool instrument, and that's what first caught my eye. Then I found it plays really low, and that sounded cool, too."

Through an uncle, James was able to borrow a bassoon that was sitting in a California closet, and he started lessons with his teacher — in Honolulu. Now he has his own instrument.

"He is an excellent student," said Gottling. "He not only has made good progress, he's best in his age group nationally."

Gottling meets James at Shangri La, the Doris Duke mansion, where James' mom works with the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.

"We meet an hour a week, though sometimes two or three times a month, because he has to commute," said Gottling. "I give him a lot to do, and his parents make sure he keeps up."

Early on, Gottling would commute to the Valley Island to teach, but James now regularly comes to Honolulu because he also has rehearsals with the Hawai'i Youth Symphony Orchestra, of which he is a member.

Besides the rarely heard piece, the weekend concerts will feature other music for voice and orchestra, tapping English as well as French compositions.

"Those who've signed up for the 'academic' sessions have found it pretty light," said Carney, who included a lecture on the featured work earlier this week as part of the rehearsals for the formal concerts. For now, the festival is a noncredit proposition; he said that it's possible credit could be given in the future.

"What's nice is the way the orchestra, made out of the best of high school and college students, can work side by side with the symphony players," said Carney. "The concertmaster at Moanalua and Kalani; a kid from Yale; another from Columbia University; and many from the University of Hawai'i ... it's a real opportunity when they come together with the professionals from the symphony."

And Gottling said the student participants learn more than just playing the music. "They learn discipline; what it takes to be in an orchestra," he said.

Reach Wayne Harada at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com, 525-8067 or fax 525-8055.