About the Concert

T

he third annual Broomfield Choral Festival concert will feature W. A. Mozart's The Coronation Mass and the Clarinet Concerto in A Major. The event is free and open to everyone.

Downloadable 2008 Concert Flier

Concert Date:

5:00pm, September 7, 2008

Concert Location:

The concert will be located at the Broomfield High School Auditorium

Rehearsal Locations:

Meet the Soloists:

Rhonda York, Soprano

Rhonda York, originally from WaKeeney, Kansas, received her music degrees from Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, and the University of Colorado in Boulder. She now lives in Pueblo West, Colorado with her husband, Dave, and son, Taylor. Having received the gift of singing, Rhonda has performed as soloist with organizations such as the Tucson Symphony, Colorado Ballet, Canterbury Choral Society, Grand Junction Symphony, Tulsa Oratorio, Colorado Springs Symphony, Wyoming Symphony, Bethany Messiah Festival, Denver Bach Society, Columbus Symphony, Glacier Orchestra, and the Billings Symphony. She has also performed in Europe with the Budweis Philharmonic in Austria and the Arad Philharmonic in Romania.

Ms. York was a finalist both in the Rocky Mountain Regional Met Auditions and the Denver Lyric Opera Guild Competition, as well as winning the National Sigma Alpha Iota Voice Award and the National Sigma Alpha Iota Performance Grant. A recent graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary with an M.A. in Christian Education, Rev. Rhonda York is a clergy member of the United Methodist Church and serves as the Children's and Youth pastor at SonRise United Methodist Church in Pueblo West. “For in Him, we live and move and have our being.”Acts 17:28

Lee Ann Scherlong, Mezzo-Soprano

Ms. Scherlong received a Masters of Music in Vocal Performance and Choral Conducting from Colorado State University and did doctoral work in Vocal Performance at the University of Northern Colorado. She has performed with the Denver Brass, Littleton Symphony, Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Wind Ensemble, Fort Collins Chorale, Longmont Chorale, Augustana Arts, Columbine Chorale, and Cherry Creek Chorale. Ms. Scherlong is a former member of the Robert Shaw Festival Singers. She sings professionally with AVE, the Augustana Vocal Ensemble, and is a music teacher in the Aurora Public Schools.

Recent performances include the Beethoven Mass in C with the National Repertory Orchestra and the Arvada Chorale, Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with the Aurora Symphony, soloist with the Augustana Chancel Choir in Alice Parker's Melodium Accord, and soloist in the Fort Collins Bach Festival. Ms. Scherlong's operatic roles, with UNC Opera Theatre, Augustana Arts, and Opera Fort Collins, include Dame Carruthers in Yeomen of the Guard, Siebel in Gounod's Faust, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, The Secretary in The Consul, Mrs. McLean in Susannah, Grisostomo in Telemann's Don Quixote, Clarina in Rossini's The Marriage Contract, Miss Scruples in Mozart's The Impresario, and the Third Lady in The Magic Flute.

Todd Queen, Tenor

Tenor Todd Queen performs regularly as a soloist with national and regional opera companies, orchestras, choruses, and concert series. Upcoming engagements include the tenor soloist in Elijah with the Greeley Chorale, Carmina Burana at Colorado State University, and guest recitals/masterclasses at Chadron State College and University of South Dakota. He has been a guest soloist with The Larimer Chorale, Colorado Repertory Singers, Utah Valley Chorus and Orchestra, Southwest Symphony and Chorus, Alpine Chorale, Longmont Symphony and Chorale, Grand Forks Symphony Orchestra, and the Rochester Oratorio Society. He is equally at home in the intimate setting of the solo song recital. He has received high praise for his artistry in performances of German lieder, French chanson, and Italian, American and British art song.

Dr. Queen is Associate Professor of Voice and Director of Opera at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. He previously taught at North Dakota State University, Alfred University, and Syracuse University. He has also recently been appointed Artistic Director of Opera Fort Collins.

Dr. Queen earned the DMA and MM degrees from Eastman School of Music after completing his undergraduate degree at Brigham Young University in Utah. He is an active member of College Music Society and the National Association of Teachers of Singing.

Deven Shaff, Baritone

A native of Idaho, Deven Shaff completed his Bachelor of Arts in vocal performance and secondary music education from the College of Idaho and his Master of Music degree in vocal performance from Colorado State University. He has performed numerous principal roles with the College of Idaho and Colorado State Opera Theater including Ford in Falstaff, Junius in Rape of Lucretia, Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, Bob in The Old Maid and the Thief, Mr. Gobineau in The Medium, St. Brioche in The Merry Widow, Guglielmo in Così fan tutte, Top in The Tender Land, Saint Peter in Too Many Sopranos, Papageno in The Magic Flute.

Mr. Shaff has also performed regionally with Opera Fort Collins in the roles of Ping in Turandot and Mr. Lindquist in A Little Night Music and is currently a member of the Central City Opera Ensemble. Upcoming performances include Schaunard in La Boheme with Opera Fort Collins in August of 2008. In 2006, he won first place in the Colorado/Wyoming Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Competition.

Program Notes

Mass in C "Coronation Mass"

O

f the sacred works that Mozart composed in Salzburg, none is as well known or as popular as the Mass in C. Interestingly, it was composed on the rebound, so to speak.

In 1779 Mozart returned to his home in Salzburg from Paris. The trip had been a disaster. Shunned by the aristocracy, abandoned by influential acquaintances who considered him to be hopelessly naïve, and having failed to find permanent employment, his once-promising career was in a shambles. Worst of all, his beloved mother, Anna Maria, had died while accompanying him on the trip — a tragedy he had to try to explain to his father.

And so, slowly, and humbly, he returned home. Partly out of material necessity and also to please his father, he took up a position in the Archbishop's service in Salzburg. He was to …

… unbegrudgingly and with great diligence discharge his duties both in the cathedral and at court and in the chapel house, and as occasion presents, to provide the court and church with new compositions of his own creation.

At the first opportunity Mozart fulfilled this demand, composing the mass for the Easter Day service on April 4, 1779. The form was a hybrid one preferred by the Archbishop with wind instruments that suggested a "Solemn Mass" and a length that suggested a "Short Mass." Mozart writes:

Our church music is very different to that of Italy, all the more so since a mass with all its movements, even for the most solemn occasions when the sovereign himself reads the mass [e.g. Easter Day], must not last more than 3 quarters of an hour. One needs a special training for this kind type of composition, and it must also be a mass with all instruments — war trumpets, tympani etc.

In other words, the mass needed a grand ceremonial setting within a compact structure. Mozart therefore omits formal closing fugues for the Gloria and Credo, the Credo with its problematic, vast text is in a tight rondo form, and the Dona nobis pacem recalls the music of the Kyrie.

Confusion exists as to the nickname “Coronation Mass,” which took hold as early as the 19th Century. The most likely explanation is that it was performed in Prague during the coronation festivities for Leopold II in 1791, or for Leopold's successor, Francis I, in 1792. Mozart must have seen the chance to be represented at the coronation festivities in 1791, because he wrote from Prague requesting that the parts for his old Mass in C be sent to him there. He was held in very high regard in Prague: The Marriage of Figaro had been a smash hit there, and they had commissioned Don Giovanni. It seems likely therefore that the city would have taken on the mass as its own, and the nickname would have grown from there.

Certainly the music itself is celebratory in nature, and would have fitted a coronation or Easter Day service perfectly. The soloists are continually employed either as a quartet, in pairs or in solo lines that contrast with the larger forces of the choir. Perhaps the most obvious reason for the mass's popularity in Prague in 1791-1792 was the uncanny similarity between the soprano solo Agnus Dei and the Countess's aria Dove sono from Figaro which had been so successful there in the 1780's.

Clarinet Concerto

Invented around 1700, the clarinet became the instrument we are familiar with today only after undergoing numerous mechanical developments and experimental versions that varied from location to location. Vienna in the 1780s and 1790s provided all the necessary ingredients to insure the clarinet’s evolution from a quirky novelty to a standard member of the wind section. The city boasted several clarinet makers who could refine and improve the instrument, and Vienna was also the home of two of the clarinet’s greatest champions: the gifted clarinettist Anton Stadler, and, of course, W A. Mozart.

Mozart wrote his only concerto for clarinet and orchestra for his friend Anton Stadler in the space of about ten days, when he was at the height of his powers, and only two months before his tragically early death.

Stadler’s prodigious performance abilities inspired Mozart to compose for an instrument whose sound he had long admired. As a young man, Mozart had written his father:

Oh, if only we had clarinets. You can’t guess the lordly effect of a symphony with … clarinets. (In 1778, when Mozart wrote this letter, clarinets were not standard in many orchestras, including that of Mozart’s employer, the archbishop of Salzburg.)

Stadler commissioned the Clarinet Concerto for a recital he had scheduled in Prague in the autumn of 1791. He premiered the work on October 16. Mozart begins the opening Allegro with a gentle (and deceptively simple) theme. The music, which showcases the clarinet’s velvety and soulful qualities, suggests serene contentment, in contrast to the dazzling pyrotechnics of a piano or violin concerto. Mozart omits the oboes and clarinets from the orchestra, in order to leave the middle woodwind register free for the soloist to exploit.

It is amazing to think that, just nine weeks after writing this concerto, Mozart was dead.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, age three, began by playing the piano. As a five-year-old, he composed minuets and at seven he played for Louis XV at Versailles and George III in London. It wasn’t until he was eight that he wrote his first three symphonies.

When he died in Vienna in 1791, not having reached his thirty-sixth birthday, he left to the world a catalogue of works, which in size, variety, and mastery is the most prodigious in musical history.

Mozart's music is considered to be the embodiment of the eighteenth-century Classical style. One of the greatest prodigies in music history, Mozart had the good fortune to be living at a time when tonality and harmony in western music had evolved to a level of purity and sophistication that makes the 18th century the envy of many composers born later.

The less fortunate aspect of Mozart’s fate was to be born to an overbearing and ambitious father anxious to exploit his son's gifts.

Drama is the essence of Mozart. His music moves with an unparalleled grace and unveils its truths with suppleness and subtlety. He excelled in every form in which he composed. His contemporaries found the complicated emotional content of his music difficult to understand. Accustomed to the light, superficial style of rococo music, his aristocratic audiences could not accept the music's complexity and depth. Yet, with Josef Haydn, Mozart perfected the grand forms of symphony, opera, string quartet, and concerto that marked the classical period in music.

The tragic irony of Mozart’s life was that he won more acclaim as a boy wonder than as an adult musician. With his music labeled as too complicated and hard to understand, he spent his last years in a tragic struggle to achieve financial security for his wife and two surviving children. At his death from a feverish illness, Mozart was buried in a Vienna suburb with little ceremony and in an unmarked grave, in accordance with prevailing custom.