Rocky Mountain EMMY Nod: True Concord & Earth Symphony (Runestad/Boss)
So thankful to have been part of the pro choir with True Concord that was nominated for two Rocky Mountain EMMY awards for audio engineering and the composition itself.
Earth Symphony is a work that thinks about what would happen if no humans were left on Earth due to climate making the planet uninhabitable. Jake and Todd left us and the audience with a compelling vision that I was thrilled to help imagine.
Click Here for more information.
“Earth Symphony,” the EMMY® award nominated, ground-breaking choral symphony from GRAMMY®-nominated composer Jake Runestad and librettist Todd Boss, is a 5-part dramatic monologue from the voice of a post-anthropocene Mother Earth. The work imagines Earth’s hope for humanity, her discovery of its power, her ruination at its hands, her lament at its loss, and her recovery. By anthropomorphizing Earth herself, drawing on the familiar earth-mother trope, “Earth Symphony” enables entry into our own ecological shame, guilt, responsibility, potential, and redemption, all from a wide-angled, time-telescoped lens, thereby asking our most immediately pressing environmental questions in an entirely new way.
Enjoy the fifth movement, captured at the premiere for Arizona PBS.
Alexander's Feast, Kloster Michaelstein, Germany, September 2019
I travelled to Germany this September to make my first commercial recording. Kathy Romey invited me to be the sole native-english-speaking tenor for Alexander’s Feast, recorded in Kloster Michaelstein, Germany with Vox Orchester, Lorenzo Ghirlanda, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.
I travelled to Germany this September to make my first commercial recording. Kathy Romey invited me to be the sole native-english-speaking tenor for Alexander’s Feast, recorded in Kloster Michaelstein, Germany with Vox Orchester, Lorenzo Ghirlanda, and Deutsche Harmonia Mundi.
What an unbelievable experience working with such an international group of colleagues, and the first time in my travels to Germany where I was the native speaker, and the one expected to help my colleagues achieve the same sort of sound that they helped me with when singing Bach in past years.
The recording itself was four intense days of hundreds of takes to get to achieve a sound that was not only together, but chords that were pristine with individual lines with direction and character.
I can’t tell the rush of relief when we would hear the loud spacebar click at the end of a take we knew would be used for the recording. The dozens of microphones in the setup were intimidating at first, but by the end were just part of the experience of recording. On the last night, we were able to share the material with a full house in Halberstadt, Germany at the Marienkirche. I was asked that night to warm up and prepare the chorus, an honor in and of itself.
A Plea for Venezuela (La Pasión según San Marcos)
I sang with one of the most inspiring women in the world, and her country is in one of the most difficult situations in recent memory.
This summer, the Minnesota Orchestra as part of its yearly Sommerfest decided to program works of Hispanic origin. As part of the endeavor, they brought Venezuelan composer María Guinand to conduct the work with which she is most famously associated, La Pasión según San Marcos by Osvaldo Golijov. The work calls for three specialized percussionists, jazz piano, plucked bass, operatic soprano solo, Brazilian jazz mezzo solo, capoeira dancers, string orchestra, brass, and a chorus that utilizes extended techniques throughout. The performers become a family as they put together one of the most difficult modern works in the choral-orchestral repertoire. To my knowledge, the work has never been performed with chorus members not part of the Schola Cantorum de Venezuela, a choir that has premiered worked by Pederecki and Adams, among other composers, in their history.
Rehearsal for La Pasión with conductor María Guinand
I became a member of this chorus because of the troubles that have occurred in Venezuela that played a part in the United States closing their embassies and consulates in the country. For members of the Schola to fly to the United States, they would have to visit the U. S. consulate in Bogota, Columbia. That was a hardship not feasible to execute, and so they found additional singers outside of the MSP area to join with Schola alumni who are now living in the United States and a core of MSP singers to mount La Pasión.
As María arrived and coached the chorus, she shared the problems that Venezuela has experienced and her hope and assuredness that good times will come again in her country. I felt for her situation and lamented with her that her colleagues could not come to sing with us. Although her country is in a dire situation, she continues her work as a conductor and ambassador for the people of Venezuela.
Our rehearsal of La Pasión
My plea to those around me is to consider how we may help this woman who has touched so many around her with her music and continues to look forward to a better future. We should bring this woman to share her story with as many people as will listen. It is a story that transcends political posturing and promotes patriotism and hope for happiness and security. Moreover, La Pasión is a singular work that María knows better than almost anyone else and people deserve to know the monumental accomplishment of Golijov and her interpretation of it. I hope that it will be performed in every major venue in the United States.
Finally, those who have means and feel strongly about her mission can donate to the Fundación Schola Cantorum de Venezuela and directly impact a non-profit organization that has contributed to the lives of people around the globe, but especially the people of Venezuela.
January '19 (P)review
Read about a wonderful fall making music with many new colleagues and some projects coming up this spring.
Although I had steady engagements, I also jumped into learning another Gilbert & Sullivan sappy tenor, Marco in The Gondoliers and was cast in IUOT’s Giulio Cesare, which opens in a few weeks. I also found little concerts here and there such as a sackbut recital and performing on the Bean Blossom Music Series, for example, that filled the gaps.
As I looked forward in August, my diary was mostly empty, save institutionally-required concerts such as the Concentus early music ensemble and my weekly church work. Almost immediately after my arrival, I added numerous engagements to the calendar. I added a second church job singing Taizé meditative services at the Canterbury House in Bloomington as well as joining the Latin American Ensemble, directed by my good friend Sarah Cranor, which included a performance on WFIU. I also became section leader for the Columbus Indiana Philharmonic Chorus, assisted by Grant Farmer.
Many choir friends including carpool-mates David Lee and Bruno Sandes.
WFIU Performance–Danur Kvilaug, Kevin Flynn, Sarah Cranor, Jon Wasserman, Allison Balberg
This spring, I look toward three opera projects, IUOT’s Giulio Cesare, an opera in Chiquitano, and La púrpura de la rosa, the first opera to be composed in the new world as part of the Bloomington Early Music Festival (IN).
The biggest single opportunity was singing the tenor soli and choruses in the Bach Magnificat, BWV 232 at Christ Church Cathedral, complete with orchestra and full choir. It had always been a goal to sing as soloist with choir in a major work, and Dr. Boney enabled the first of hopefully many of those opportunities to come to fruition.
Looking Forward: Fall 2018
As I began the long journey back after another summer at the Bach Cantata Academy in Weimar with my wife, Shannon, I was heading to a new school, new engagements, and new colleagues to learn from and to interact with. Upon arrival I was already preparing for my first performance with the BBCP (event details here) to be performed the Sunday after the second week of classes.
In my church work, I accepted a post at Christ Church Cathedral on Monument Circle in downtown Indianapolis. The responsibilities include weekly Evensong services on Thursdays and singing for the weekly Sunday Eucharist, among other concerts and special events (found under my engagements). Before this particular post begins, I sang at First Presbyterian Church in Bloomington where I met Grant Farmer, DMA (Choral Conducting) candidate at IU. He will use me as soloist for In Ecclesiis by Gabrieli in a concert for choir and orchestra.
As part of joining the HPI at the Jacobs School of Music, I have become a part of Concentus, the instrumental-vocal consort. This semester will feature performances of Medieval Masterworks (Oct 13), French chansons and Italian frottole (Nov 10), and the Schütz Weihnachtshistorie (Dec 7). The performance of Schütz will be my first singing of a Christmas Evangelist as the tenor concertist.
Oregon Bach Festival, Eugene (July 2018)
A wonderful two weeks in Oregon premiering one work and exploring the height of oratorio, Elijah with conductors JoAnn Falletta and John Nelson, prepared by Kathy Romey.
I just finished my time singing in Eugene with the Oregon Bach Festival for the first time. There were two wonderful performances in the Hult Center with talented soloists and demanding conductors.
The Passion of Yeshua, Richard Danielpour. Conducted by JoAnn Falletta. Silva Concert Hall, Eugene, OR, 8 July, 2018.
The first week we put together the premiere of Richard Danielpour's The Passion of Yeshua with conductor JoAnn Falletta and soloists J'Nae Bridges, Kenny Overton, Sarah Shafer, Matthew Worth, Tim Fallon, and fellow chorister Edmund Milly. Mr. Danielpour's concept was to place Jesus' death squarely in context of His Jewishness and the recognition that He lived and died with the rituals associated with Judaism. Thus, the choir's text was mostly set in Hebrew and the Last Supper was celebrated in the context of the Passover Seder. Here is the review that appeared in the Eugene papers about our performance. Particularly of note was how the chorus I was a part of was lauded for our sensitivity and diction as prepared by the inimitable Kathy Romey.
L to R: David Mann, Christopher Gilliam, Rebecca Blackwell, Blake Beckemeyer (me)
The second week featured a performance of Mendelssohn's Elijah, conducted by John Nelson. Mae. Nelson was intimately familiar with the work and brought an operatic and dramatic bent to Elijah's life story. Overshadowing the performance was touching personal issues that made the performance more special for all those involved. During the last fugal chorus "Lord our Creator..." there were not only wet eyes in the audience, but my friends, me, and John Nelson were also counted among them.
Bach Akademie Charlotte, Emerging Artist Program (June 2018)
In June, the week before my wedding, I travelled to Charlotte, NC to join BACh (Bach Akademie Charlotte) in their inaugural BACh! Fest, a week-long presentation of Bach's music around greater Charlotte. The ensemble is fully-professional, and I joined their ranks as an Emerging Artist, one of their initiatives to help younger singers bridge the gap between schooling and being a professional chorister and soloist.
The festival presented a weekend concert before I arrived, and then I was asked to join a select ensemble for two Bach Discovery Concerts and for two performances of the B-minor Mass. The discovery concerts were a chance for audience members to hear a lecture with musical examples on one of Bach's cantatas then hear a full performance of the cantata. The two cantatas presented at lunchtime on Tuesday and Thursday were BWV 75: Die Elenden sollen essen and BWV 76: Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes with a choir of about 14 with the North Caroline Baroque Orchestra. Cantata 76 sold so well that the performance venue was moved to a larger space. Due to the unfortunate illness of one of the tenors, I was thrust into singing the solo quartet part with the other tenor the day of the performance of BWV 76.
"The Masterwork," Bach's B-minor Mass was performed with as many people in the choir as members in the orchestra with period instruments. The work is as challenging as it is long with few arias interspersed between the hit parade of choruses. I was happy to make the festival a large success for the city, and the 2019 festival program has already been announced.
https://bacharlotte.com/festival
Bach Cantata Academy, Weimar (August 2017)
Collection of videos and reflections on my trip to Weimar, Erfurt, Eisenach, and Leipzig, Germany this summer for the 4th Annual Weimar Bach Cantata Academy with Helmuth Rilling and Kathy Romey.
I was lucky enough in August to travel to Weimar, Germany for a series of concerts with Helmuth Rilling, coached by Kathy Romey. As my first summer exploring Bach in detail, I feel like his style comes much more easily and I have found a true love for his music when it is done to its fullest. The hardest part was learning the articulatory precision that makes this man come alive. We would spend hours in rehearsal marking which phrases had eighth note cutoffs, which phrases demanded which sequence of staccato and connected singing. I have never in my life heard so many distinctions of separation (non-legato, marcato, portato, staccato, articulated legato, etc). As much as it was an education in style, it was an education in focus, attention to detail, and rehearsal efficiency.
The first four concerts were lecture concerts in the Stadtkirche in downtown Weimar. The examples were rehearsed in advance with unusual precision in their starting and stopping, and moreover Maestro often added and deleted right up until the lecture as he honed his ideas on how to present the cantata. Here is the first Gesprächkonzert of the festival of Cantata 63 "Christen, ätzet diesen Tag."
The other Gesprächkonzert videos are of Cantata 65 "Sie werden aus Saba kommen"
Cantata 31 "Der Himmel Lacht", and Cantata 11 "Lobet Gott in seinen Reichen".
While preparing for the lecture concerts, we also gave a choral concert in the Erfurt-Dom, the gigantic cathedral in Erfurt, a nearby city that Bach visited during his lifetime. I had a solo in the Schütz "Der Herr ist mein Hirt." The piece begins at 26:46.
After all of this, singing at Bach's baptismal font and also his grave completed an experience that drives me to explore deeper his Passions and his other vocal works (which I will do in my Honors Scholar Thesis this academic year). This opportunity makes me appreciate these scholars who have popularized and preserved Bach's legacy in making him arguably the greatest composer who has ever lived. Here is our review (aber auf Deutsch) of our concert in Leipzig.
Concert of 3 Cantatas in front of Bach's Baptismal Font in the Georgenkirche Eisenach.
Amherst Early Music Festival (July 2017)
Reflections and pictures from my first period production in New London, CT, with the Amherst Early Music Festival
I think everyone may remember their first period production. I have no evidence for this, but given that all men are in tights, acting as if they "have pillows under their armpits," and are often singing as multiple characters without a care for how that looks to their audience, I think first performances in this genre are fairly memorable. Mine was just like many before me.
Drew Minter more-or-less popularized and pulled into the mainstream period gesture in early music performances. Back when he first was directing, he would star in his own productions. For a while, he has been sharing his craft with young people, and it has changed how I sing and act for the better. Every gesture has actual symbolic meaning. Love is traditionally one hand over the heart and the other palm shining where their affection lies. Every other oft-used emotion has its specified gestural picture. We have borrowed all of this from sculpture and art, but it has not gained a permanent foothold until recently when enacting period performances. I feel lucky I had an opportunity to explore in this direction, and learn a completely foreign way to move on stage.
Adam Pearl, conductor, with 30-piece period orchestra
The orchestra had wooden "things" I had never seen: Baroque oboes and bassoons, viols, violones, tailles, baroque cellos, a conductor who created a contraption so that the harpsichord rested as a second manual of sorts on top of a portative organ. I sang in the faculty concert with Xavier Diaz-Latorre who is a renowned theorbist. Even though I was at this place a single week, I left feeling as though I had the world's most intense education in Baroque and Early Music. I rehearsed day and night, and I was probably the most ignorant person there by large bounds. That was the best part!
Libby Larsen (June 2017)
I went from discussing how to sing "sew" to revising a piece and recording it for the composer: the beginning of a journey with Libby Larsen.
Picture with Libby Larsen and Geoffrey Conquer
I had the opportunity this past week at SongFest to work with Libby Larsen. She is known as a predominantly art song composer, and we worked together on "Lord Make Me An Instrument" and "I Cried Unto God," the latter in a master class.
I was struck by Libby's energy and the amazing care she puts into curating and creating inspiring performances of her music. When I first received the scores, they had her personal home address on them (or such is my assumption) in what looked like a hand-sealed envelope.
Simply put, that is Libby. She is one of the most personable people I have ever met, and truly cares about how the performances are shaped by her writing. So much so that pianist Geoffrey Conquer and I collaborated on a new edition of "Lord, Make Me An Instrument" that was edited throughout our week based on our coachings together. As a singer, having a composer specifically looking to please your vocal needs is a huge luxury that I never expected when beginning to learn the piece. Normally, every challenge is an opportunity to improve technique and interpretation, but I felt honored that somehow my voice was worthy of the piece being adjusted for my sake.
In the master class, we worked with "I cried unto God," dedicated to Thomas King, a voice teacher at my undergrad, DePauw University. It was great connecting humans who had never directly worked on the piece together and I was glad to bring, as Libby said, "humanity" to a piece whose text is almost untenable.
“You brought humanity to the piece. You made me believe, even for a moment.”
December Update: In October, Geoffrey and I recorded the two pieces that had been coached by Libby at DePauw University, with Matthew Champagne as the recording engineer and Shannon Barry as the producer. In addition, Libby had asked us to record a Christmas piece, "Lullay of the Nativity." This beautiful piece takes a chant-like melody and imposes jazz chords underneath it, combined both the High Church historical background of Christmas carols with the more modern lens of accessibility.