Webber Requiem, Schubert Mass, and Marsalis Sax

For its third concert of the 2008-09 season, The Metropolitan Chorus (TMC) performed Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem and excerpts from Franz Schubert’s Mass No 6 in E-Flat Major. TMC was joined by The Heritage Signature Chorale and the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra (ASO). Also on the program was guest artist Branford Marsalis, who will be performing an aria from Johann Sebastian Bach's Saint Matthew Passion, Jacques Ibert’s Concertino da Camera, and Vocalise for Branford with saxophone quartet and strings written by ASO's music director Kim Kluge. (YouTube clips of Branford Marsalis playing Concertino da Camera can be found here - part 1, part 2)

Andrew Lloyd Webber (1948-) is an English composer of musical theatre. Having started composing at age 6 and published his first piece at age 9, he has composed some 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of variations, and two film scores. His Requiem mass was written in 1984 in memory of his father, William Lloyd Webber, who died in 1982. This was the popular composer’s first and only full classical work. Requiem received a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Composition in 1985, and Pie Jesu, the 8th movement and best-known segment of the piece, has received much popularity and been recorded frequently.

Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer, writing some 600 lieder (songs), 9 symphonies, liturgical music, operas, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. He is particularly noted for his original melodic and harmonic writing. Written in 1828, Mass No 6 in E-Flat Major (D950) was among Schubert’s most admired creations, hardly what one would expect of an ailing composer in his final year. Yet this great mass for five vocal soloists, choir, and orchestra is a bold and innovative work, inspired in its expansive form and abundant counterpoint by Ludwig van Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis.

The concert was presented on Sunday March 8 at 3 pm at the Rachel M Schlesinger Concert Hall and Arts Center in Alexandria, Virginia.

Holiday Jazz for Children

Several members of The Metropolitan Chorus, along with members of the Alfred Street Baptist Choirs and Westminster Presbyterian Church Choir, helped comprise the chorus for the Alexandria Symphony Orchestra’s (ASO’s) Children’s Holiday Concert.The program was held at Alfred Street Baptist Church, with some 500 in attendance. Everyone had a wonderful time, enjoying the various jazz selections, Christmas carol sing-along, and reception of holiday treats. Mind you, this was not ASO’s full orchestra, but a 15-member jazz powerhouse featuring various sax, clarinet, flute, trumpet, trombone, piano, bass, and drum.

The program began with ASO’s ever-energetic Kim Kluge conducting Duke Ellington’s arrangement of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite (Op 71a). Ellington arranged an adaptation of the suite for his orchestra in 1960, featuring selections such as Toot Toot Tootsie Toot (aka Dance of the Reed-Flutes), Peanut Brittle Brigade (aka March), and Sugar Rum Cherry (aka Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy). To help foster the children’s imagination, Kluge also read excerpts from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the fairy tale on which the ballet was based.

The program continued with up-tempo jazz arrangements of Santa Clause is Coming to Town, Sleigh Ride, Frosty the Snowman, Charlie Brown Christmas, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Then the chorus helped lead the audience in a sing-along of Christmas carols including O Come, All Ye Faithful; Hark! The Herald Angels Sing; Joy To The World; Silent Night; Deck the Halls; Jingle Bells; and We Wish You A Merry Christmas. And what children's concert would not be complete without Santa Claus!

Founded in 1803, Alfred Street Baptist Church is home to the oldest African American congregation in Alexandria and has served as a prominent religious, educational, and cultural institution. During its 205-year history, the church has had only eight pastors.

In appreciation of the concert, members of the Alfred Street Baptist Choirs extended invitations to The Holy Night, a Christmas festival of music, drama, liturgical dance ministries, and carol sing-along to be held at the church on Sunday, December 21 at 5 pm.