Siskiyou Singers

Concerts

You never know quite what to expect when you attend a Siskiyou Singers concert, but as Rogue Valley audiences have learned over the past 20 years of Dave Marston's direction, you'll certainly find a delightful evening of choral music. Whether it is a rousing Carmina Burana or some ancient settings of the Latin mass, you can expect to hear fine choral music performed by people from your community who deeply love what they are doing. The joy of singing together bonds this large choir of over 140 voices and prompts them to excellence..

Each concert brings some new element to the stage. It may be the addition of a dance number, paintings from a local high school art class, a children's choir, or instrumentalists, but our music is enhanced and the audiences are exhilarated.

We hope you will share our love of choral singing this year.

Past Concerts:

Spring 2008

FUNDRAISER SHOW

FALL CONCERT 2007

SPRING CONCERT 2007

FALL CONCERT 2006

Our first concert of the season featured the glorious choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach and the foremost Elizabethan composer, William Byrd. Byrd's Mass for Five Voices is a sublime work, suffused with all the serenity of High Renaissance sacred music. Bach's Magnificat, by contrast, is a joyous, celebratory piece, featuring the text of the Biblical "Song of Mary." In addition, we offered several carols about bells and gave the audience a chance to sing along on some of them.

SPRING CONCERT 2006:

Saturday May 13 8 PM and Sunday May 14 at 4:00 PM

Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio.

In 1990, Sir Paul McCartney was commissioned to compose a large scale classical work to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. He responded with his Liverpool Oratorio, an inventive work featuring soloists and chorus, as well as instrumental accompaniment. The result was a semi-autobiographical work that begins in 1942, the year of his birth in Liverpool as it was at war with the Nazis. Soprano Kiri Te Kanawa appeared in the premiere performance in 1991. McCartney, the composer of some 400 recorded songs, proved to be equally at home in the classical idiom. Incidentally, McCartney, the composer of the song "When I'm 64", turns 64 in the year 2006.

Fall Concerts 2005

The Creation by Haydn (sung in English). Friday, December 9 at 8:00 PM and Sunday, December 11 at 4:00 PM.

Franz Joseph Haydn's ebullient oratorio The Creation might very well qualify as the most joyous large choral work ever composed. Ranking up there with Beethoven's Ode to Joy and Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, it is unsurpassed in sustained praise and delight. After the opening instrumental movement, The Representation of Chaos," the chorus soon declares "and there was light" and from that moment on, there is rarely a moment which could be described as anything less than pure ecstasy.

Joining us were soloists Marian Horton (soprano), Michael Flahery (baritone), and Roger Graves (tenor). Haydn masterfully combines the choir with solos and instrumental accompaniment in such choruses as "The Heavens Are Telling." Audience members that enjoyed our performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah last season were equally enthralled by this outstanding work, truly one of the great choral classics.

The Siskiyou Singers' Christmas Concert. Saturday, December 10 at 8:00 PM. Our Christmas concert this year featured a delightful early French Baroque composition, Midnight Mass for Christmas by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, in which the composer interwove traditional French Christmas carols in the vocal and instrumental parts. Traditional Christmas carols and solos were also sung by the choir and by soloists.

We know that many people in our area love to attend a Christmas choral program as part of their holiday celebration. Over the years we have heard many of you express delight after hearing our Christmas concert and feel that it ushers in the spirit of the season.

Spring Concert 2005:

England's John Rutter is probably the most widely performed contemporary composer of choral music in the world today. There is a reason for that: his music is not only beautiful, but accessible and distinctive in style. Not given to lavish expressions of harsh dissonance, Rutter manages to converge the best aspects of popular and classical music into the choral music idiom. He is a master of the choral sonority, having grown-up singing soprano as a boy in school, and gradually moving to alto, tenor and eventually bass. Later, as a conductor and founder of the Cambridge Singers, he began to increase his choral output, and has rapidly built on his reputation since the 1960's, both in his native country and in the United States.

In May 2004 the Siskiyou Singers received standing ovations for performances of Broadway Revisited. Music from Fiddler on the Roof, Westside Story, A Secret Garden, and Evita thrilled audiences. The combination of uniquely talented soloists, a choral group of beautiful voices with soaring harmonies, an unequaled artistic director, and the rich material from these musicals provided a memorable concert series.

DECEMBER 10 & 12, 2004 Friday, 8 PM Sunday, 7 PM

Elijah

Truly one of the great choral masterpieces of all time is Mendelssohn's oratorio, Elijah. It's easily the most dramatic composition of his remarkable, yet brief career. We offered the entire work in this production, complete with 22 great English choruses.

Elijah is the work of a fully mature Mendelssohn who was intensely drawn to the spiritual soul-searching of the primary character. Like the great oratorio composer, Handel, who preceded him and he immensely admired, Mendelssohn was born in Germany, but established a large following in England. This prompted him to compose works that could be performed in English. In fact, the original production of Elijah, given in England in 1845, was sung in English.

If you attended our production of Handel's Semele, you will recall a gifted array of local soloists. For this performance, baritone Don Mathews returned in the title role. Also joining us were tenor Andrew Brock, alto Tami Marston, and soprano Pauline Sullivan.

DECEMBER 11, 2004 Saturday, 8 PM

A SISKIYOU SINGERS' FAMILY CHRISTMAS

No holiday brings to mind more music than Christmas. In our annual Christmas concert, we offered many of the traditional carols through an engaging set called The Many Moods of Christmas, arranged by Robert Shaw, American's most beloved choral conductor of the 20th century. We also offered a lively collection of African-American carols called Shout for Joy. A chamber choir presented a Palestrina Christmas motet and there were opportunities for the audience to join in some informal carol singing together. It all added up to a fun-filled evening, like attending a traditional Christmas party, complete with joyous singing around the piano.

Tickets are usually available at Party Place, Music Coop, Paddington Station, or Tree House Books or by calling 541-482-5290.

Check back for future concert dates.

Siskiyou Singers
P.O. Box 3041
Ashland, OR 97520

TEL: 541-482-5290
E-mail: Siskiyousingers@aol.com