Pioneer Press: VocalEssence offers the sounds of Christmas, from the north

By Rob Hubbard, Special to the Pioneer Press

December 5, 2014

An Arctic winter deserves some Christmas music from up around the Arctic Circle. They know something about staying warm on cold nights in the Nordic lands of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, and Friday night’s first of local choral powerhouse VocalEssence’s “Welcome Christmas” concerts provided plenty of thick, warm harmonies to enwrap you. Actually, the program led by conductor Philip Brunelle spends as much time in England as in its neighbors to the north, for the first half of the evening was given over to the world premiere of a new cantata by Alan Bullard, “A Light in the Stable.” It’s a very intriguing piece, and audience members at Apple Valley’s Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church on Friday night will be able to say that they helped premiere it. For it involves a fair amount of crowd-sourced caroling, and there’s nothing like a full-throated “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” to oxygenate the system.

However, the strongest sections in Bullard’s piece came when he created a sound world all his own on the spare, hypnotic “Sing lullaby!” (kudos to soprano soloist JoAnna Swantek) and the lush and lovely “A Light for Today.” Local actor Katherine Ferrand offered expressive readings of poems that were also distinctly musical.

While familiar carols found their way into the Bullard cantata, the concert’s second half, dubbed “A Nordic Christmas,” featured seldom-heard fare, most of it sung in the composer or arranger’s native language.

Even when a melody was familiar — as on Michael Praetorius’ “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming” — it was swept up in something arrestingly unusual, in that case emerging mysteriously from the fog-draped soundscapes of Sweden’s Jan Sandstrom.Similarly transfixing was Norwegian composer Kim Andre Arnesen’s “Cradle Hymn,” a simply beautiful piece that sounded straight out of the Midwest choral tradition (not coincidentally spearheaded by Scandinavians) and yet featured the captivating complement of a string quartet. Speaking of strings, many of the Nordic carols were lent a rustic flair by the fine folk fiddling of Sara Pajunen.

Thickly textured harmonies are what the Chorus and Ensemble Singers of VocalEssence do best, and an arrangement of “Ringen i Klockor” by Sweden’s Gunnar Idenstam provided an ideal final surge of warmth before the appreciative audience was sent off into another cold night.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at rhubbard@pioneerpress.com.

Who: The VocalEssence Chorus and Ensemble Singers with conductor Philip Brunelle and fiddler Sara Pajunen

What: “Welcome Christmas”

When and where: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Trinity Lutheran Church, 115 N. Fourth St., Stillwater; 4 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 14, Plymouth Congregational Church, 1919 LaSalle Ave., Minneapolis; 7:30 p.m. Dec. 13, Colonial Church of Edina, 6200 Colonial Way, Edina

Tickets: $40-$20, available at 612-371-5656 or vocalessence.org

Capsule: Warm music from chilly countries.