Battle Creek Girls Chorus, Ars Voce
Saturday, March 13, 2010, 7:30 pm
First Congregational Church
Experience the many facets of love in beautiful song as the Battle Creek Girls Chorus and the a cappella ensemble Ars Voce present "My Heart is in the Highlands" on Saturday, March 13, 7:30pm at First Congregational Church.
The Girls Chorus will delight and inspire with a setting of the Robert Burns poem, "My Heart Is in the Highlands," plus the Canadian folk song "Savory, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme," which details the tasks a boy must accomplish to become a girl's true love. Also featured will be a swinging Brazilian love song and Jewish wedding music featuring lyrics from the Old Testaments "Song of Songs.
Then Ars Voce will then transport you back to the golden age of the Strauss waltz with Edward Elgar's "From the Bavarian Highlands." Evoking Alpine vistas and colorful folk adventures, the piece offers an entertaining contrast to Elgars most famous work, the high school graduation favorite Pomp and Circumstance.
Advance tickets, $16 for adults, and $8 for children and senior citizens, are available at the Music Center at (269) 565-2199 and online by clicking below.
First Congregational Church is located at 145 Capital Avenue, NE, in Battle Creek. The Music Center is located on North Fremont Street at Kellogg Community College.
The Battle Creek Girls Chorus, directed by Meredith Bowen, performs locally and on tour, with plans for Chicago performances in June and a trip to Paris, France, in spring break, 2011. The Chorus is now recruiting new members.
Ars Voce, a 12-member adult ensemble directed by Mark Wells, specializes in a cappella music of the last 500 years.
Here are some thoughts on the program by Girls Chorus Director Meredith Bowen:
I decided with the theme of "Heroes among us" that we would celebrate our sisters, friends, boyfriends and the love that we feel for those people. The title "My Heart's in the Highlands" is a bit of a play on the theme. Ars Voce is doing "From the Bavarian Highlands" and the "heart" part is the GC.
The Girls are singing a piece entitled "My Heart's in the Highlands" which is a Robert Burns poem about loving the land where you grew up. The Bavarian Highlands' text has no significance to the love themed concert. Elgar visited Southern Bavaria on multiple holidays and wrote a work that tries Bavarian customs on for size.
The love portion of the concert will be provided by the girls. The Vivace is singing "Savory, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme" which is a canadian folk song. It's a courting song of sorts. She says: if you do these things for me (buy me this, make me this, jump through these hoops) then you can be my true love. They are also singing "Johnny Said No" which is about a shy boy in a small village who says no to the pushy girl who wants to marry him. The girls of the town cannot believe he said no and sing about it for 3 minutes. The last piece Vivace is singing is "Song of Songs." It's a three movement work with text from the Song of Songs in the old testament. The piece was composed for a Jewish wedding and employs pentatonic scales as well as a "Jewish Sounding" accidentals. Very cool, tough piece that the Girls love.
Octavio will sing another piece from Song of Songs and "Sisters" which is a playful song about being young and loving your sister. They do playground clapping during this one. They also are singing a Brazilian folk song about loving the person you'll spend the rest of your life with.
Amabile's love is not as defined. They are singing a German piece "Heidenroslein" which is about a boy who pricks his finger with a rose thorn. They are also singing "I Bought me a Cat" because animals can be your friends too. They are singing a TOUGH piece called "Toucans Two." It's jazzy with the girls making the sound of brushes on snare drums with their mouths. The text is "Whatever one toucan can do is sooner done by toucans two, and three toucans, (it's very true) can do much more than two can do.
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