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Choir brings composer’s work to life

School music — GFU senior led choir as part of graduation requirements

By: Laurent Bonczijk (The Newberg Graphic)
Published: 2/16/2010 1:58:03 PM - Newberg Graphic.com

Striving to harness the high energy produced by crowding two dozen high school students into a portable classroom, composer Roman Kolyvanov stood on a chair to lead the Veritas concert choir and advised them: “I want you guys to sing like soloists.”
Working under pressure, Kolyvanov, a 22-year-old senior at George Fox University, had to have a good take on videotape by the next morning. Only a couple of tries were necessary to capture clean versions of his work.

Kolyvanov had asked the choir to perform two pieces of his. An all-original tune called “As the Watchman,” inspired by Psalms 130:6, and “Sad Little Star,” a jazzy take on the classic “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

Tenor Oliver Abraira and soprano Consuela Hegeman, both 17-year-old juniors, said they thought it was a great opportunity to work with the composer of the work they sang. Abraira was chosen for the solo on “As the Watchman.”

“We don’t have a lot of solos here,” he said of the Veritas repertoire, and it is “a lot more pressure.” As a thespian he’s used to being singled out on stage and said the pressure doesn’t effect him.

“It’s always different when it’s their own work,” he said of how the conductor behaves. “They use a lot more specific directions because they wrote the piece with a specific sound in mind.”

Hegeman added that it’s being directed by a college student because of the different energy they bring to the enterprise. “It’s always fun just in general to have a different director from time to time,” Abraira said.

Kolyvanov said he was pleased at how the rehearsal went and of his work with the choir in general. It was his first time working with that age group.

“I’m trying to figure out the balance between being funny and also focusing and getting things done,” he said. Artistically he also had “to be very malleable,” in order to strike the right balance between the sound he sought and the vocal capacities of the students.

Veritas music teacher Sally Mehler said the pieces were good pedagogic tools because “it’s very singable, it’s the sort of song that gets stuck in your head.” It was fun and interesting for her group to work with Kolyvanov because he gave them instant feedback and finetuned the piece right in front of them by adding a couple measures just that day.

“I was really, really impressed by it,” Hegeman said of Kolyvanov’s work. She’d had low expectations of working with a beginner, but in the end it was “more creative than I thought it might be.”

Photo By: Laurent Bonczijk
Practice — The Veritas Choir will sing Kolyvanov’s pieces as they compete. Their goal is to reach the state tournament