Although it requires a delicate balance, human voices can eloquently enhance an orchestra.
Joined by the Fox Valley Orchestra Chorus, the Fox Valley Orchestra will present its “Passionate Mystique” concert at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Crimi Auditorium on the Aurora University campus.
“With this concert’s incredible diversity of musical ideas, each audience member will be able to imagine themselves in different times and different places,” said conductor Brian Groner, the orchestra’s newly appointed music director. “That is one of the most wonderful things about music — it takes us places we have not been and allows us to feel things we have not felt before.”
The program starts with “The Walk to the Paradise Garden” from the opera “A Village Romeo and Juliet” by Frederick Delius. Next, the Fox Valley Orchestra Chorus, under the direction of chorus master Lisa Fredenburgh, will add its voices for “An Oxford Elegy” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Dr. Richard Westphal, chair of the fine arts division at Aurora University, will serve as the piece’s narrator.
Since its inception in 2011, the Fox Valley Orchestra Chorus has collaborated with the orchestra on a regular basis.
“There are many wonderful pieces in the standard orchestral literature that integrate chorus with the symphony,” Groner said. “Adding the chorus allows the palate of colors produced to be greatly extended. There is incredible communicative power in the human voice.”
Of course, when an orchestra works with a chorus, getting the correct balance can by tricky.
“The players must constantly adjust their tone color and their volume to allow the text to be heard and understood by the audience,” Groner said. “The placement of the chorus always puts them at a sonic disadvantage as they must project their voices over, around and through the bodies of the orchestral musicians in front of them.”
The program’s final selection is Cesar Franck’s “Symphony in D Minor,” a heavier piece with tension and passion in three movements, also a staple in many music appreciation classes.
“I absolutely love the variety of music on the concert,” Groner said. “It starts with the ethereal, overwhelmingly beautiful Delius and ends with the very serious and very grand Franck D Minor. There are many moods and characters in this one.”
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Jen Banowetz is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
Fox Valley Orchestra’s ‘Passionate Mystique’ concert
When: 3 p.m. Sunday
Where: Crimi Auditorium, 407 S. Calumet Ave., on the Aurora University campus
Tickets: $9-$16.50
