Bob Stanley, a Chicago physician who sings bass in the William Ferris Chorale, tells of how he was waiting for a flight in the Brussels airport recently when a stranger approached him. He obviously had been attracted by Stanley`s sweatshirt, which bore the chorale name and logo.
”Are you performing here?” asked the man, excitedly.
”No, actually I`m just passing through the airport,” replied Stanley.
”Oh,” said the fellow traveler, crestfallen. ”I`m from California, and I`ve heard the chorale`s recordings, and I thought that if you were performing in Brussels tonight, I`d go to hear your concert, because you guys are terrific.”
Word does get around.
Recognized throughout the Midwest as one of Chicago`s finest choral organizations, the William Ferris Chorale lately has been drawing attention in other parts of the nation and even in Europe, thanks to the wide distribution of its two recordings, ”Let the Organs Thunder” and Leo Sowerby`s oratorio
”Forsaken of Man,” and a BBC Radio broadcast taped in 1986 during the Chorale`s visit to the Aldeburgh Festival.
More recognition is likely to come this season when the 48-member professional chorus under William Ferris`s direction celebrates its 20th anniversary.
Twenty years may be only a twinkling in the eye for an august institution such as the Chicago Symphony, but it is a significant stretch of time for a modestly budgeted (about $250,000), midsized group that only now may dare to consider itself established, rather than still struggling.
The chorale`s longevity is even more remarkable, considering the kind of music in which Ferris specializes.
Most of the area`s smaller choruses base their repertoire on Baroque and Romantic music, some occasionally throwing in a sing-along ”Messiah” to sweeten the box office. Not Ferris. The Chicago-born director has consistently championed the literature that very few choruses anywhere would take the trouble to prepare. Season after season, he builds programs around the music of living composers-William Schuman, Ned Rorem, David Diamond, Gian Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber, Dominick Argento and Vincent Persichetti, to name the most prominent.
Concert audiences are supposed to flee in horror from programs of contemporary music, even conservative contemporary works of the sort that Ferris prefers. Fortunately, no one seems to have told his large, enthusiastic and growing public of that fact.
”One of the things our longevity has proved to me is that there is an audience for music of our century,” says the 54-year-old Ferris, a respected composer with nearly 70 choral and 15 orchestral works to his credit.
Partly because Ferris approaches his chosen repertoire with a composer`s sensibility, partly because he is a skilled choral conductor, his performances are lavishly praised by the toughest judges of all-the composers whom he invites to Chicago to take part in the concerts of their music.
After the chorale devoted an entire program to William Schuman`s music in 1986, the distinguished elder statesman of American music sent his gratitude, ruefully adding that ”if they ever did such a concert in New York, only my friends and family would attend.” In Chicago, the program was packed.
What makes composers like Schuman eagerly entrust their music to Ferris?
Intensity and thoroughness of preparation has much to do with it. ”We lavish as much attention on contemporary composers as most (groups) would lavish on Brahms or Beethoven,” explains John Vorrasi, the chorale`s general manager, general factotum and frequent tenor soloist.
Venturing into musical areas where few other choruses would dare to tread not only has built the chorale into one of the most technically and musically disciplined groups of its kind, but has piqued the curiosity of listeners. Vorrasi says the season is more than 60 percent sold by subscription, a new record.
There`s more: To date the Ferris Chorale has presented the works of nearly 40 composers of the 20th Century, more than half of them Americans. That amounts to 69 Chicago premieres and 19 world premieres, a remarkable cross-section of contemporary choral music, balanced with selected music from earlier centuries.
”When I look back at all the new or recent music I`ve done with the chorale, I`m almost staggered,” Ferris exclaims. ”The thing that scared me is that I had to learn all of those pieces! With a regular chorus you would have been able to spread the load among five or six conductors. It`s been a wonderful learning experience, for me as well as my singers.”
That experience should be particularly intense in the season ahead. The chorus began its 1991-92 series with a holiday program Friday in its acoustically friendly home, Mount Carmel Church on West Belmont, where Ferris has been director of music since 1983.
To create the season`s centerpiece, Ferris has invited seven prominent composers-John Corigliano, Eric Fenby, William Mathias, John McCabe, Schuman, Rorem and Diamond-to write flourishes for the chorus on the text ”Amen. Alleluia!” All seven commissions, plus Ferris` own choral setting, will receive their world premieres at the concert of March 27, 1992.
Other programs in the series will include a concert of music by Mathias on Feb. 14, with the Welsh composer taking part; and an all-Ferris program on May 15 holding the world premiere of his ”Gloria” for chorus and orchestra. Around the time of the Ferris concert, Northwestern University will open a display of manuscripts and memorabilia from Ferris` personal library, including his correspondence with former CSO music directors Fritz Reiner and Jean Martinon.
The anniversary season will close on June 6 with a mammoth class reunion featuring a chorus of some 300 voices, including present and former chorale members. Singers and directors from other area choruses also be invited to take part in this ”encore” concert.
The chorale membership is typically diverse, with a large number of professionals represented: doctors, lawyers, journalists, teachers, businessmen, students, a therapist and a postal carrier. Several perform with other area choruses. Many have had no formal voice training, but that isn`t the point; it`s their dedication to the ensemble that matters.
Indeed, most members say it`s their interest in the repertoire and the team spirit Ferris creates that makes them willing to submit to a schedule of six-hour weekly rehearsals and performances. It certainly isn`t the pay;
chorale members, even the soloists, receive only a token remuneration.
”Money has never been an easy thing,” says Vorrasi, who is the only fulltime staff person employed by the chorale. ”We`ve never had a board like the Lyric Opera or CSO with people who could write $100,000 checks and not bat an eye.”
Despite financial worries, Ferris insists he and the chorale have developed a mutual respect.
”I have grown to respect their strengths and weaknesses,” he says. ”I sort of feel like their papa, sometimes even their father-confessor. Because, when you get down to it, directing a chorus is 60 percent music and 40 percent psychology. And when you get out there on stage you have to be ready for almost anything.
”You have to be crazy to love singers as much as I do. I`ve worked with boychoirs, children`s choruses, conservatory choruses, adult choruses, festival choruses; I have sung with amateurs as well as professionals. Everyone can sing better than they think. But if you are going to do consistently top-flight 20th Century choral music, then you have to make sure your resources are there.”
A Chicago-born former boy soprano whose teachers included Alexander Tcherepnin at De Paul University and Leo Sowerby at the American Conservatory of Music, Ferris says he was inspired to start his own chorus after hearing the Robert Shaw Chorale during his student days. It was the unique Shaw choral sound that fascinated young Ferris, a hearty sound that remained with him until years later when he got the opportunity to start a chorale of his own.
The director is very specific when he distinguishes the sound of the Ferris Chorale from that of other area professional choruses.
”A Renaissance group like His Majestie`s Clerkes makes a very fashioned, clean sound,” he explains. ”The Chicago Symphony Chorus has a wide, warm, rich sound, almost like cellos. Music of the Baroque, by comparison, has a very crisp, forward, trumpets-and-drums kind of sound.
”The William Ferris Chorale has defined itself by its sound, too. Ours is a textured, layered, linear sound, very clean and very American. I am making this instrument to fit the kind of music we sing.”
Twenty years ago the Ferris Chorale was a nomad, wandering from church home to church home. For a period it took up residence at St. James Cathedral before a major church renovation project sent the choristers packing once again. Since moving to Mount Carmel Church eight years ago, however, the chorale has succeeded in tapping into a supportive, arts-minded audience that, in Ferris` view, can only continue to grow.
”We have created a community of listeners, our own little festival town in the Lakeview area. People are proud to be associated with us. Even board people are now willing to take us to lunch and talk about financing a new recording. I`m very happy with the ensemble this year. This anniversary season seems to have peppered them with new spirit. No doubt about it: we`ve turned an important corner.”
