From an exquisitely tender German evening song to a stormy Brazilian psalm, the Santa Clarita Master Chorale has everything you want in a summer concert this year.  “Let Music Fill the Air” is our theme and we are presenting a whole program of songs about singing.
We humans have been called “the first instrument” and it is quite an intimate thing to use one’s own body – breath and muscle, eyes and ears -- to make music.  The Chorale will be offering a vocalise by Rachmaninoff, a Laughing Song by David Dickau complete with “ha-ha’s” in the lyrics, and that clap-your-hands favorite from Sweet Charity called “Rhythm of Life.”
Just when you thought no one could impress you with another version of “Danny Boy,” along comes Fresno-born composer Kevin Memley who writes his rendition for just the men of the Chorale.  The dramatic vocal rhythmics will have your heart swelling all over again to this tender song.
The Santa Clarita Children’s Honor Choir will be rejoining us onstage for the featured work of the concert, Mass of the Children by Englishman John Rutter, a Chorale favorite.  Under the direction of Jennifer Brown, this group of young singers just keeps getting better.  Come and celebrate the next generation of choristers as they and the Chorale sing Rutter’s music and the poetry of William Blake and Bishop Thomas Ken.
We thought “global” for this concert – music from South America to Russia – but we are delighted to program a very “local” artist, too.  Composer James Tatti is the winner of our second annual Cal Arts composition contest and the Chorale will be premiering his work, To The God Who Gave Breath: Alleluia.  Both lyrical and dramatic, Tatti’s anthem is based on the book of Genesis.  Its words and music shimmer like that first streak of summer dawn.
Italian-American Norman Dello Joio is on the bill with “A Jubilant Song.”  This modest New Yorker won a Pulitzer Prize for his music in 1957, and his piece is an all-American celebration with text adapted from our own beloved Walt Whitman: “Listen to a jubilant song, for we sing to the joy of life.  We dance, exult; we shout and leap.  O listen to our song.”  That is the Chorale’s invitation to you: come start your summer with the joy of singing!
The Chorale’s performance home is the Santa Clarita Performing Arts Center at College of the Canyons, located at 26455 Rockwell Canyon Road in Santa Clarita.  For more information or tickets, go to the Chorale’s website, www.scmasterchorale.org, or call 661-362-5304.