NEWS AND LINKS: 9/11 Concerts beginning to appear on schedule

By Robert D. Thomas

Music Critic

Pasadena Star-News/San Gabriel Valley Tribune/Whittier Daily
News

The question about how classical music will commemorate the
10th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks isn’t really “how” but “how many?” Because
9/11 falls on a Sunday this year, most churches will likely pay tribute in
their worship services. However, details of special musical events are also
beginning to emerge.

The Pasadena Master
Chorale will honor the day with a performance of Faur’s Requiem at 4 p.m.
at La Crescenta Presbyterian Church. Artistic Director Jeffrey Bernstein will
lead the concert, which will open with four a cappella American works: a
traditional setting of Psalm 137, By The
Waters of Babylon; Virgil Thompson’s My
Shepherd Will Supply My Need; Words
To Be Spoken, by Ross Lee Finney; and Bernstein’s own arrangement of America the Beautiful.

The Faur Requiem is a logical choice for this type of
concert. As Bernstein notes, “Perhaps the lightest of the well-known Requiem
settings, Faure’s Requiem is tuneful and direct, ending with music of ethereal
beauty and promise.” Soprano Krystle Casey and Baritone Cedric Berry will be
the soloists in the Requiem, which will be accompanied by Edward Murray on the
church’s pipe organ. DETAILS

Incidentally, the PMC will present a summer concert entitled
“My Spirit Sang All Day” on Aug. 14 at 4 p.m. at La Crescenta Pres. Bernstein
will conduct music ranging from Purcell, Elgar, William Billings and Ralph
Vaughan Williams to Ernst Krenek and Matthew Harris. DETAILS

The first group out of the block on 9/11 commemorations
was the Los Angeles Philharmonic,
which will use its Hollywood Bowl concert on Tuesday, Sept. 13, as a tribute to
those who died in the attack. The program will include the other “most obvious”
musical choice — Mozart’s Requiem — and pair it with Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. Bramwell Tovey, who
for the past two seasons was the Phil’s principal guest conductor at the Bowl,
will lead the orchestra, Los Angeles Master Chorale and soloists Heidi Stober, soprano;
Kate Lindsey, mezzo-soprano; Nicholas Phan, tenor; and Matthew
Rose, bass-baritone. Chichester
Psalms calls for a boy treble but he hasn’t been named yet (at least the
name isn’t on the Web site). DETAILS

BTW: the Bowl’s concert on 9/11 will be a rock concert
featuring The National;

Neko Case,
with special guest T Bone Burnett; and Sharon Van
Etten in what the HB Web site describes as “an evening of
triumphant, powerful and poetic American rock music [celebrating] our spirit
and resolve under the stars of the summer sky.” DETAILS

Muse-ique, Rachael
Worby’s new ensemble, has announced it will participate in a free concert of
American music at 6 p.m. on the steps of Pasadena’s City Hall, but no details
have been forthcoming.

More will surely arrive in the in-box during the weeks
ahead.

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