University Chamber Chorus |
Marika Kuzma, director |
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DescriptionRehearsal InformationAudition InformationCurrent SeasonRecent performancesDiscographyDepartment of Music
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For the 2008-09 academic school year, director Marika Kuzma has returned from her 07-08 leave of absence with the Montreal Sympbony. For audition information please see the choral audition information. Students wishing to receive credit for singing in the Chamber Chorus should register for Music 145.
The Chamber Chorus of the University of California, Berkeley, Marika Kuzma director, is the university's premiere vocal ensemble and a musical jewel in the San Francisco Bay Area. A select group of some thirty singers, the ensemble is particularly acclaimed for its readings of both early and contemporary music. The chorus regularly performs with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, its collaborations with that orchestra and the Mark Morris Dance Group meeting with sold out audiences and enthusiastic critical acclaim. It has also premiered and recorded works by such noted American composers as Elinor Armer, Richard Felciano, Morton Feldman, Lou Harrison, Jorge Liderman, and John Thow. Their concerts have been featured in broadcasts of the Voice of America, Public Radio International, and Austrian Radio. Concert engagements have included appearances locally in Hertz Hall, St. Mark’s Church, Zellerbach Hall, Oakland's Paramount Theater, Grace Cathedral, and Davies Symphony Hall and throughout California as well as concert tours to Canada, England, Germany (Goethingen Festival), Austria, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. In 2006, the Chamber Chorus was invited to Brazil to sing the Bach St. Matthew Passion with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas under Maestro Kent Nagano. Last season it performed Steve Reich’s challenging and exciting Desert Music.
Critics from the New York Times, Washington Post, San
Francisco Chronicle, and Opera News alike have praised the chorus
as "excellent," "splendid," "electric." "The
UC Chamber Chorus leaves no syllable unarticulated and no musical marvel unexplored"
(San Francisco Examiner). Among Chamber Chorus recordings, its Handel's Susannah
on the harmonia mundi label and Liderman Song of Songs received Grammy
nominations and its Icons of Slavic Music is known in Eastern Europe
as well as America.
The chorus is competitively selected from singer-musicians in the greater campus
community: undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, staff, community members.
Singers in the chamber chorus are expected to have advanced musicianship skills
and significant vocal/choral experience. Members of the chamber chorus typically
regard music as their primary vocation or as a highly committed, passionate
avocation.
Saturday November 8
8 PM, Hertz Hall
Zigeunerlieder music inspired by
gypsy traditions
Selections by Brahms (sung by the University Chorus)
and Dvorak (sung by the Chamber Chorus)
The Chamber Chorus will also sing a set of selections to be sung with instrumentalists
of authentic gypsy music
Wednesday December 10 Holiday Noon Concert
12:15, Hertz Hall
Handel Messiah (Part I)
University Chorus
University Chamber Chorus
Student soloists
With an orchestra of leading Bay Area Baroque musicians
SPRING SEMESTER, Dates TBA
Concert of contemporary choral music by Berkeley composers
Other concert TBA
2007-08 Season
November 1
6 PM, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
A concert for All Saint's Day
including Tomás Luis de Victoria's Requiem, Officium defunctorum
(1605)
Directed by Matt Oltman (Assistant Music Director
of Chanticleer)
December 5 Holiday Noon Concert
12:15 PM, Hertz Hall
Selections by Britten, Souza, Warlock
and Praetorius/Sandström
Directed by Ian Kirk (distinguished University Chamber Chorus
alumnus)
March 12 Noon Concert
12:15 PM, Hertz Hall
Choral music by Saint-Saëns, Ravel, Canteloube,
Lili & Nadia Boulanger, Messiaen, Duruflé
with soloists Christa Pfeiffer, soprano & Edward
Betts, tenor
Directed by John Kendall Bailey (distinguished University Chamber
Chorus alumnus)
April 26
8 PM, Hertz Hall
Steve Reich, The Desert Music (1982-84)
Choral preparation by John Kendall Bailey
Conducted by David Milnes
With chamber orchestra of leading contemporary musicians
2006-07 Season
September 30-October 7,
Zellerbach Auditorium
King Arthur by Henry Purcell
(American Premiere)
Mark Morris, director/choreographer
Jane Glover, conductor
Mark Morris Dance Group
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Featuring the original English cast
November 2
Berkeley Art Museum, 7 PM
Music for All Souls Day
Pierre de la Rue Missa pro fidelibus defunctis [Requiem]
December 6 Holiday Noon Concert
12:15, Hertz Hall
“A Child is Born"
Selections in styles from medieval monastic to contemporary
Excerpts from:
Pierre de la Rue, Missa Puer natus est
Handel Messiah
Britten, A Boy was Born
Nin -Culmel, “La virgen lava pañales”
Whitacre, Lux aurumque
April 20, 8 PM, Hertz Hall
April 22, 7 PM, St. Dominic’s Church, San Francisco
The Medieval Carmina Burana: 13th Century Poetry
and Music
Love Songs, Biblical Scenes, Dance Songs.
This is theatrical reconstruction based on medieval manuscripts of student songs
and poetry from Benediktbeuern and borrowing from Thomas
Binkley's staging for the 1990 Berkeley Festival.
With guest instrumentalists Paul Binkley, Frances Felden,
Shira Kammen, Roy Whelden.
October 21
8 PM, Hertz Hall
Music Department Centenary Concert
Randall Thompson excerpts from his Requiem (a work composed for the
University Chorus and premiered in Hertz Hall in the 1950s)
November 4 and 5
8 PM, Hertz Hall
"Lux aeterna"
Fauré, Requiem
Stravinsky Requiem Canticles
Tavener "Song for Athene"
Collaboration with the University Chorus
With orchestra and alumni soloists
December 7, Holiday Noon Concert
12:15 PM, Hertz Hall
Holiday Noon Concert of French
Christmas music and carols:
Charpentier, Messe de Minuit
With period instrument chamber ensemble
Poulenc motets,
French and Cajun carols
With guest fiddler Sue Draheim
December 10, St. Mary's College, Moraga
"Holiday Music with a French Accent and Southern Twist"
Charpentier Messe de Minuit, Poulenc
motets, French carols
With period instrument chamber ensemble
Carols from the American South: Appalachian, Cajun, etc.
With guest fiddler Sue Draheim
March 19
5 PM, Hertz Hall
J.S. Bach, St. Matthew Passion
With period orchestra and guest soloists
Alan Bennett, Evangelist
Benjamin Park, Jesus
Other guest soloists
April 20-23
Davies Symphony Hall San Francisco, First Congregational Church Berkeley
Beethoven, Symphony No. 9
Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra
Nicholas McGegan, conductor
Collaboration with the Philharmonia Chorale and SF
Choral Artists
May 25-28, East Coast Tour
"A Cappella Music from Latin America and Eastern
Europe"
Cambridge, MA-First Church Congregational, May 25
New York, NY-St. Michael's Church 99th St, May 26
Washington, DC-St. John's Church Lafayette Square, May 28 11 AM
Church of the Epiphany, May 28, 5 PM
Selections by Lavista, Liderman, Nin-Culmel,
Orrego-Salas, Cobián, Bortniansky,
Dychko, Hurko, Pärt
August, 2006 “California Festival Camerata” Tour to Brazil
Members of the Chamber Chorus, joined by distinguished alumni,
and singers from the American Bach Soloists, the Carmel
Bach Festival Chorus, Philharmonia Baroque Chorale
and the Pacific Boy Choir were invited to Brazil to perform
with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas.
Sao Paolo
Rio de Janeiro
Bach, St. Matthew Passion
Conducted by Kent Nagano and David Robert Coleman
October 16
8 PM, Hertz Hall
“North and South of the Border”
Latin American music by Lavista, Liderman, Nin-Culmel, Orrego-Salas,
Cobián
Selections by Samuel Barber: Reincarnations
and Agnus Dei
October 22, 23 Mini-Tour to Southern California
Little Bridges Hall, Pomona College, All Saints Church Beverly Hills
Latin American music by Lavista, Liderman, Nin-Culmel, Orrego-Salas,
Cobián
Selections by Samuel Barber: Reincarnations
and Agnus Dei
December 8, Holiday Noon Concert
12:15 PM, Hertz Hall
“Music for a Glorious Season”
Collaboration with the University Chorus
Including Part V of Bach, Weihnachtsoratorium [Christmas
Oratorio] "Ehre sei dir Gott"
With Baroque orchestra and student soloists
February 16, Noon Concert
12:15 PM, Hertz Hall
“American Songs of the Last Century: Songs
of a Purple Country”
Choral and Solo selections by Samuel Barber, Ives, Copland and William
Bolcom (visiting composer and Bloch Lecturer)
With pianist I-Fei Chen and student soloists
Sunday April 10
3 PM, Hertz Hall
“Poyte Pesni! Sing Songs!”
Choral concertos by Bortniansky, choral arrangements of Glinka
songs, concluding with Stravinsky's Svadebka [Les
Noces, or The Wedding]
(This concert was part of the Cal Performances Series "Ballet and
Music in Russian History and Culture" and the final event of the
Department of Music international conference "Glinka and His Legacies")
Sunday May 1
3 PM, Berkeley Art Museum
“In Illo tempore: Music of the Time of Rubens”
Motets by Giaches de Wert and Monteverdi,
excerpts from Monteverdi L’Orfeo
With violas da gamba and student soloists
(In collaboration with the BAM exhibition “Drawn by the Brush:
Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens”)
For further information please contact Marika Kuzma at (510) 642-5519 or at mkuzma@berkeley.edu
Sample of Past PerformancesSpring 2004
“Music for Sacred Spaces”
University Art Museum
Plainchant and chant by Hildegard of Bingen, motets by Guillaume Dufay, and
the West Coast premiere of Robert Moran's Stimmen des letzten Siegels
Spring 2004
“From Sacred to Salsa”
International House
Latin American music by Franco, Ginastera, Lavista, Liderman, Nin-Culmel, Orrego-Salas,
Ortiz, Sierra.
Fall 2003
St. Mark's Church
Monk and Brahms
Meredith Monk, Book of Days - West Coast premiere.
Brahms, Lieder, Quartets & Love Songs
with guest directors Vance George (Grammy Award-winning director of the San
Francisco Symphony Chorus) and Kelly Crandell (Assistant to Meredith Monk)
Fall 2003
Zellerbach Auditorium
Handel L'Allegro
with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and the Mark Morris Dance Group
Spring 2003
Tour to Pacific Northwest
Britten Hymn to St. Cecilia, selections
by Arvo Pärt and others
Spring 2003
Grace Cathedral. San Francisco
Schütz Musicalische Exequien
Fall 2002
Monteverdi Vespers of 1610
September 11, 2002
In Memoriam (part of campus-wide
commemoration)
Selections by Mozart, Schnittke, Brahms, Copland, McFerrin, Malkin
Spring 2002 Berkeley Early Music Festival
“Voices of Byzantium”
Eastern Psalmody from Mount Athos to Moscow
Spring 2000
J. S. Bach Mass in B Minor
Fall 1999
Twentieth-Century Choral Music
Selections by Steve Reich, Richard Felciano, Lesia Dychko
Updated 7/22/2008
For information about this website please e-mail: music@berkeley.edu