BOULDER CHORALE
BOULDER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA
Our third concert will feature the wonderful Boulder Chorale in collaboration with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Bahman Saless, with the gems of spiritual music by Mozart and our Resident Composers Jim Klein and Ian Jamison.
PROGRAM
Spiritual Journey
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
Great Mass in C minor, K. 427
Jim Klein, Ian Jamison
Summation (2021)* Colorado premiere
About the Artists
For more than 56 years, the Boulder Chorale has been a source of musical inspiration, education, and collaboration within the Boulder community. Our mission is to enrich and inspire a broad community through music.
In 1966, members of the chorus of the Boulder Civic Opera decided to become a separate entity, available to the Opera for performances but also rehearsing and performing independently. The group consisted of five sopranos, five altos, and three men. And that was the start.
The Boulder Chorale is intergenerational. More than 200 singers, ages 5 to over 80, perform in six ensembles at free concerts, high-profile community events, and traditional performances.
The Boulder Chamber Orchestra (BCO) was established in 2004, and stands as Boulder’s premier professional chamber orchestra. Since our formation, we have consistently played to sold-out audiences and featured some of the most sought-after musicians across the world. BCO is committed to playing under performed rarely heard pieces, to educate audiences and bring to light incredible composers.
Our mission is to promote classical musical arts and education to ALL people, through an engaging and profound musical experience.
Our goal is to make classical music accessible to all, through connection and education; giving back to the community in the form of affordable concerts and free educational classes. We exist to share the gift of music by playing pieces that not just entertain, but transform lives.
We believe that music is the ultimate form of communication. It reflects our thoughts, actions and our feelings as humans; Music connects us all in ways no other medium can, and brings us together, validating our existence as humans. This sharing of our humanity in form of sound is the reason we play.
BCO is committed to professional excellence, and to delivering performances of the highest quality. All of our musicians are professional musicians, who are paid for their time and talents.
Dr. Vicki Burrichter was named Artistic Director of the Boulder Chorale in July 2015. Under her leadership, the Concert Chorale and Chamber Chorale have continued to showcase their 54-year history of musical excellence in performing classical music while expanding the repertoire into diverse styles. Highlights include Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts (which the chorus took to the Netherlands in the summer of 2019 with three Grammy-nominated musicians and Denver’s Montview Presbyterian Church Choir), Carnival Brazil with the Boulder Samba School and Ginga, the Tangos of Argentina with the Austin Piazzolla Quintet, Between Heaven and Earth – Hindustani classical music with JamKeyJam, Misa Tariro with Kutandara Marimba, To Hope! A Celebration by Dave Brubeck, A Very Boulder Mardi Gras with Guerrilla Fanfare Brass Band, Viva Cuba! with singer Suzanne Morales, Mozart’s Requiem with the Boulder Chamber Orchestra, Handel’s Messiah with Pro Musica Colorado Chamber Orchestra, Brahms’ Shicksalslied with the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra, and Dvořák Stabat Mater with the Boulder Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of her previous work include: directing Voices of Light, an oratorio set to the 1927 Carl Dreyer film, The Passion of Joan of Arc; a tour with students to Cuba; conducting the Colorado Symphony and 200 singers in the secular oratorio Sing for the Cure; twice collaborating with the Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble to perform jazz legend Mary Lou Williams’ Mary Lou’s Mass at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts; founding the SOAR! Youth and Adult Choir, which mentors foster/adopted children in choral music and life skills; winning a Gold Medal at the New York Choral Festival with her chamber choir of ten years, Canto Spiritus and; recording with that ensemble the CD Brazil! The Choral Music of Marcos Leite. For 25 years, she taught voice and performance privately and was described by teacher and author David Craig (On Performing; On Singing Onstage) as “one of the most brilliant performers I have ever taught.”
Dr. Burrichter is founder and director of several musical nonprofits and a successful production company, VIART Productions, LLC. She speaks on the business of artistic social entrepreneurship to organizations across the country and in 2014 was asked to give the commencement address to the Graduate School at her alma mater, the University of Northern Colorado. She is a lifelong educator who has taught all levels from elementary school through college. She holds a doctorate in choral literature and conducting, a master’s in music, a bachelor’s in theater, and did post-undergraduate studies in jazz, African music, and twentieth-century music. Dr. Burrichter is a Professor of Humanities at Western Governors University. Her mentors and teachers include conductors Marin Alsop, Vance George, Pierre Boulez, and Robert Shaw.
Jim Klein was lucky enough to find visual art and music at an early age. Both fostered his creativity, broadened his experience of the world, and taught him to say yes to things he feels passionate about even when others are saying no. As a natural entrepreneur, the lessons he learned from the arts have helped him in business and in life by giving him the courage to go after the undiscovered.
He began his painting career in earnest at the age of 63 after many successful years as an entrepreneur in the agri-business sector. Inspired by a dying friend who asked Jim to send him a drawing each week, Jim’s work quickly evolved from simple sketches to colorful works that reflect his love of nature, music, and life.
A central theme in Jim’s life has been giving back to his community, colleagues, and friends. Jim hopes his works connects viewers with their inner selves, linking to who they are and what they feel deep inside.
Jim works in a bright studio outside of Kersey, Colorado. He is often joined by his grandchildren, who have their own creative spaces, and his dog, Shadow. His works are on display at many venues around the country.
For more information please visit: https://jkleingallery.com/
Ian Jamison has joined full time at J Klein Gallery to help Jim Klein write music.
PROGRAM NOTES
by
Hanguang Wang
Mozart: Mass in C minor, K. 427
In 1781, disregarding his father’s advice, Mozart left the service of the archbishop of Salzburg to pursue employment opportunities in Vienna. In August of the following year, he defied his father’s wishes once again and married Constanze Weber in Vienna, which created a significant rift between him, his father, and his sister. Shortly after their marriage, Mozart began working on the Mass in C minor to fulfill a promise he had made before marrying Constanze. He pledged to present a new Mass in Salzburg, showcasing her wide-ranged soprano voice when he returned with her as his beloved wife to meet his father.
In a letter to his father in 1783, Mozart mentioned the Mass, “The score of half a mass which is still lying here waiting to be finished, is the best proof that I really made the promise...” However, the work was never completed. Little is known about the premier, and many speculate that the missing sections of the mass were filled in with music from Mozart’s pre-existing Mass. After a rehearsal in the church by the local orchestra chorus, it was performed at St. Peter’s Church in Salzburg on October 26, 1783 with Constance singing the first soprano solo voice in it.
Mass in C minor is also known as the “Great Mass in C minor”, likely due to its grand idea and scale. Although Mozart had previously written fifteen masses, this one stood out for its unique structure and profound content. Similar to Bach’s Mass in B minor, Mozart intended this compositio to be on a larger scale than what was normally performed in church services. Like Bach, he wrote some choruses for five and even eight voice parts, incorporating fugues and other intricate counterpoint techniques. Unlike most of Mozart's major works, which were commissioned or performed for his own recitals, the Mass in C minor was entirely driven by his own heart, without any financial motive. As he said in a letter to his father, “It is quite true about my moral obligation... I made the promise and hope to be able to keep it.”
Although Mozart had to take into account the constraints of playing in Salzburg when composing this work, the Mass in C minor transcended his previous church music compositions, reflecting his heartfelt voice and mature personal style. From the completed parts, the scale of the original plan is comparable to that of Bach’s Mass in B minor, and the influence of the religious works of Bach and Handel can indeed be felt. The Italian operatic flavor of the work can also be heard. The work is for orchestra (no clarinet, as the Salzburg Band does not have this instrument), four soloists (two sopranos, a tenor, and a bass), the four-voice chorus SATB, and an organ. The performance lasts about 50 to 60 minutes. Though unfinished, it remains one of the longest of Mozart's works outside of opera, and one of his most heartfelt and deeply moving monuments.
Mozart never returned to work on that Mass. He was always busy with other things. When it was eventually published nearly fifty years after Mozart dead, the edition presented an incomplete work, as it appeared in the manuscript. Only the Kyrie and Gloria were fully finished. The Credo had only two of its movements, both of which needed some parts of their orchestration to be filled in, and the Sanctus and Benedictus needed the music of the second chorus to be filled in, where the chorus divides. And at last, not a single note was written for the final sections Agnus Dei.