NEC Chamber Singers: Something Old - An Origin Story / Something New - The Line Between

In 1947, NEC Acting Director Harrison Keller recognized the pre-eminent brilliance of a 26 year-old Lorna Cooke DeVaron (1921-2018) and hired her to formally launch the NEC Choral Department. For the next four decades, Lorna built the department, programming repertoire that spanned from the early middle ages to commissioning new choral works, performing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and touring the world with her NEC choristers. Since her retirement in 1988, those of us who have held the post as NEC Director of Choral Activities have done our best to follow in the immense footprints she left.
       In closing the Choral Department's 75th Anniversary season—in honor of Lorna's legacy as well as all those who came before me and had a hand in shaping choral music at NEC—the 2022-2023 Chamber Singers will take you on an evolutionary journey, celebrating the emergence of western classical polyphony during the height of the European Renaissance, to pushing the boundaries of how the choral sound can be featured in non-traditional ways in the 21st century.
       The 7:30PM program, "Something Old: An Origin Story" will expose you to a handful of some of the most brilliantly conceived motets and madrigals of the Renaissance, featuring works by Ockeghem, desPrez, Byrd, Lotti, as well as motets and partsongs by Romantic period composers who favored Neo-Renaissance part-writing for choir. In the spirit in which the selected motets on this program were originally performed— from cathedral balconies, during a Christian service, that permitted the singers to be heard but rarely seen—the Chamber Singers will perform the first half of the concert from the Jordan Hall balcony. You are encouraged to permit yourself the freedom to close your eyes and rest in the sound and solace they offer, withholding applause until this portion of the program is complete. Following a short intermission, the choir will perform the second half of the program from the Jordan Hall stage, in their characteristic "U" standing arrangement, allowing them the opportunity to interact with one another as dramatic singing artists, telling stories of Love: its longing, loss, appeal, and joy.

At 10:00PM, we will continue the journey with "Something New: The Line Between", a collaborative venture featuring Andrew Lenox, a former NEC Chamber Singer, dedicated to carrying the tradition of choral singing into a new aural space. The choristers will combine sung material with live-produced electronic sounds informed by, and steeped in, the tradition of house music of today—which is itself born out of a need to break new cultural and artistic ground and rebel against the staid and respectable world of classical music.