Audiences will be treated to a rarely performed English Renaissance piece when William Chin, artistic director of The Oriana Singers and director of City Voices, combines his two choruses for the 40-voice motet “Spem in Alium” by Thomas Tallis.
The premiere will be at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 18 at United Lutheran Church, 409 Greenfield St. in Oak Park, with a second performance Oct. 19 at St. Josaphat Church in Chicago.
“It’s not something that everybody attempts to do,” Chin said. He revealed that the work has always been on his list to either sing or direct. The text is in Latin and the work is about hope.
“It’s speculated that (Tallis) wrote it because he was made aware of an Italian composer who, shortly before that, had written a 40-part piece of music that he was either inspired or challenged to write something similar,” Chin said.
It’s a challenge to perform because it has 40 separate singing parts.
Plus, he said, “You have to have the right room to do it in. It can’t be in a small room.”
The Oriana Singers and City Voices will perform with the singers stationed around each church sanctuary, creating surround sound for the audiences.
“There’s a certain challenge in just the mechanics of putting it together, if you want to do it well,” Chin said.
The concerts will also include a piece inspired by the Tallis motet, “Tentatio,” another work for 40 voices by contemporary Finnish composer Mäntyjärvi.
Also on the program is “Past Life Melodies” by Australian composer Sarah Hopkins. “It falls into the large-scale category because it involves a lot of voices,” Chin said. “There is no text and there’s some overtone singing.”
In addition, there will be a setting of “Ave Maria” by Gustav Holst for women’s voices. The Oriana singers will sing a Bach motet. Also on the program is another Renaissance piece, “Miserere,” by Allegri, which is usually sung during Lent.
Tenor Gregg Sewell is performing with City Voices for his second year. He said he studied “Spem in Alium” as an undergraduate at Stamford University in Birmingham, Alabama, where he studied music theory and composition, but has never sung it.
“I know the piece and it’s wonderful,” he said. “It has 40 different voices in it and none of them are singing the same part.”
He said that “makes it really difficult to sing. One of the fascinating things about it is the work’s divided into eight choirs of five voices each. I happen to be singing in choir 2B, and that is just me and four other people singing our parts and nobody else in the 40-voice choir has that part. In a sense, I’m singing a solo but you don’t hear it as a solo because it’s surrounded by all the other voices. One of the things I like about it is the challenge of knowing nobody else has my part. I better do it right.”
Sewell is also enthusiastic about singing the work, “Past Life Melodies.” “There are 12 melodies and four or five of us sing each one of the twelve melodies. It’s a mesmerizing piece,” he said.
Alto Allison Selby Cook is in her second season with The Oriana Singers. “One of the things that I think Bill (William Chin) has such a gift for is programming,” Cook said. “It’s unlike other choral concerts you might hear in the region. He has a really awesome variety and his pieces are connected and really flow together in a way that takes the audience through a journey.”
Cook said that she was also familiar with “Spem in Alium,” “and I’ve never had a chance to do it. It requires such choral forces and quantity of singers.”
She she did some research and reported the piece hasn’t been performed in Chicago for a very long time.
“The other thing I’m really excited about is that Bill (William Chin) has paired it with a contemporary composer who has also written a piece for 40 voices in response to the Tallis,” Cook said. “We can do that because we have the right number of people.”
Chin concluded, “I hope people will be intrigued and really have a wonderful musical and spatial experience.”
Tickets are $35; $30 seniors; students 18 and younger are free. Information is at cityvoiceschicago.org/spem-in-alium.
Myrna Petlicki is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
