St. Charles Singers to give milestone concerts in Wheaton, St. Charles

The St. Charles Singers’ season finale concerts on April 20 and 21 will mark the start of the internationally recognized chamber choir’s 40th anniversary celebration with a program featuring songs about nature, especially flowers, and romantic love.

“We’ll be presenting a heartfelt musical bouquet to our audiences,” Jeffrey Hunt, the choir’s founder and artistic director, said in a news release.

As a nod to the past, the choir will offer works they’ve cherished over the years, including folk songs from the English choral tradition. Looking to the future, they’ll introduce pieces they’ve never performed before.

Titled “Past As Prologue: Voices in Bloom,” the concerts take place at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 20, at St. Michael Catholic Church, 310 S. Wheaton Ave., Wheaton; and 3 p.m. Sunday, April 21, at Baker Memorial United Methodist Church, 307 Cedar Ave., St. Charles.

An hour before each concert, Marcus Jansen, who sings in the choir’s tenor section, will give a 30-minute talk about flowers mentioned in the songs, including their past and present uses in gardening and landscaping. Jansen holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in horticulture from Iowa State University, and is a product development manager for PanAmerican Seed, West Chicago.

Flower power

Flowers are a centerpiece of the spring concerts. The choir will perform 20th-century English composer Benjamin Britten’s “Five Flower Songs,” his bright, joyful and musically varied settings of poems from past eras.

“These are beautifully crafted works, each with its own musical identity,” Hunt said.

In the piece’s “Four Sweet Months,” the soprano voices represent April, the altos May, the tenors June and the basses July. In “The Evening Primrose,” Britten paints a sonic night scape where the primrose blossoms in the dark and retreats at the first rays of daylight.

‘Bushes & Briars’

The mixed-voice choir will reprise six songs from their critically acclaimed album “Bushes & Briars: Folk-Songs for Choirs – Books 1 & 2,” named for the collection of traditional British folk tunes edited by renowned English composer and choirmaster John Rutter. Rutter has spoken glowingly of the St. Charles Singers, and conducted them on multiple occasions over the decades.

Songs include Rutter’s arrangements of “O Waly, Waly” (Wail, Wail) and “Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron”; “The Oak and the Ash,” arranged by Edward Barstow; “Early One Morning,” arranged by David Willcocks; “The Turtle Dove,” by Ralph Vaughan Williams; and Gustav Holst’s arrangement of “I Love My Love.”

“The texts and emotions woven into these songs are timeless,” Hunt said. “I believe in the power of this music, which is still able to make us laugh and cry, think and wonder.”

New choral arrangements

Receiving their premieres are Hunt’s own choral arrangements of five songs from American composer Alec Wilder’s beloved children’s bedtime collection “Lullabies and Night Songs,” originally written for voice and piano. Hunt has arranged “Star Wish,” “Many Million Years Ago,” “Seal Lullaby,” “Douglas Mountain” and “Fiddle dee dee.”

Also new to the choir’s repertoire is Morten Lauridsen’s lush setting of the James Agee poem “Sure on This Shining Night,” which evokes the beauty and wonder of finding kindness in the bleakest times.

New, too, is Eric Whitacre’s “Sing Gently,” a simple four-part song for which he wrote words and music. Its message, he says, is “that we sing gently as one. That we be together. That we are kind and delicate with each other.” Written in the pandemic year of 2020, Whitacre premiered it over YouTube with a “virtual choir” of more than 17,000 singers from 129 countries.

Rounding out the program is an early St. Charles Singers commission: Charles Forsberg’s “In Christopher’s Time: Jazz Suite for Choir in Five Movements,” inspired by the Christopher Robin character in A.A. Milne’s book “Winnie-the-Pooh.” Written for the St. Charles Singers in 1988, it was last performed by the choir in 1991, with Rutter as guest conductor.

Tickets and information

Tickets for “Past As Prologue” are $45 for adults, $40 for seniors, and $12 for students. Tickets and information are available at stcharlessingers.com/tickets or by calling 630-513-5272. Tickets additionally are available at Town House Books, 105 N. Second Ave., St. Charles (checks or cash only at this ticket venue). Tickets also may be purchased at the door on the day of the concert, depending on availability.

Blossoming voices

St. Charles Singers ensemble members performing in “Past As Prologue: Voices in Bloom” include sopranos Jeanne Fornari and Karen Rockett, both of Batavia; Amy Bearden and Ingrid Burrichter, both of Chicago; Marybeth Kurnat, DeKalb; Mary Kunstman, Elburn; Laura Johnson, Hanover Park; Meredith Taylor Mollica, Naperville; and AnDréa James and Cynthia Spiegel, both of St. Charles.

The alto section includes Valerie Bollero and Margaret Fox, both of Batavia; Kelly Grba, Bolingbrook; Nicole Tolentino, Glendale Heights; Jennifer Gingrich, Naperville; Chelsea King, North Aurora; Debra Wilder, Vernon Hills; and Karen Archbold and Rachel Miller, both of Wheaton.

Tenors are Rob Campbell, DeKalb; Bryan Kunstman and Bradley Staker, both of Elburn; Nicholas Metzger, Elgin; Marcus Jansen, Geneva; Stephen Mollica, Naperville; Gregor King, North Aurora; Jonathan Cramer, Waukegan; David Hunt, Wayne; and Steve Williamson, West Chicago.

Bass singers are Brandon Fox, Batavia; Douglas Peters, Chicago; Nate Coon, Crystal Lake; Jess Koehn, Downers Grove; Stephen Uhl, Glen Ellyn; Michael Popplewell, North Aurora; Antonio Quaranta, River Grove; Aaron James, St. Charles; and Drayton Eggleson, Sycamore.

In addition to singing bass, Uhl is the concert’s collaborative pianist.

St. Charles Singers

Founded in 1984, the chamber choir has been hailed by American Record Guide as “a national treasure.” The mixed-voice ensemble includes professional singers, choral directors and voice instructors, some of whom perform with other top-tier Chicago choirs. Find out more at stcharlessingers.com.