By Harry Schroeder

The Keys Chorale, under the direction of Dean Walters, gave its annual Holiday Concert on Friday at the Old Stone Church. Most of the songs in the first set were traditional, and most were about Christmas, while the second set was given over to five arrangements by John Rutter and his “Gloria.” Jim Cutty provided the piano accompaniment, joined by Donna DeForrest, the island’s star flutist, and veteran percussionist Dave Parker. In an engaging version of “Welcome Christmas,” the singers were assisted by kids from the Bahama Village music program; the final number of the evening, the “Gloria,” was backed by a fine brass section from the Key West High School Band.

 

The concert opened with a selection entitled “Christmas…in about Three Minutes,” a kind of miscellany of Christmas songs (“We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Jingle Bells,” etc.), which set an easy, relaxed tone to the concert. With that as introduction, the chorus moved into high gear, with an arrangement of “The First Nowell.” They sang it a capella, and, with no clear instrumental pitch to rely on, they sang it in tune. Their control of dynamics was excellent, with moves from loud to soft executed with easy precision. And they sang it movingly. It was a good way to start the evening.

 

The set proceeded with ten more songs, all of them well sung. One virtue of the concert was the intelligence of the program’s design. Tempos varied, as did levels of formality; so did the emotional tone called up by the music. One nice touch was the absence of any of the songs from the pop novelty songbook—no front teeth, no Rudolph, no Mommy getting it on with Santa—which commercial composers try to add to every year, hoping for the kind of hit which, along with its royalties, will be repeated annually forever. There were novelties like the opening miscellany— a group of Christmas songs melodically rewritten in the style of Mozart, Tom Lehrer’s “Hanukkah in Santa Monica,” sung with full animation by Pony Charvet—but all were tasteful and without condescension. The one excursion into the pop realm was Jerry Herman’s “We Need a Little Christmas,” a very good song in and of itself, sung with energy and enthusiasm, and chosen in part to give advance notice of Vincent Zito’s concert of Herman’s music coming up on the 22nd. Nearly all the singing was by the full ensembles: along with Charvet’s solo, which was more of a skit than an aria, the effective duet by Ginny Barr and Sandy Walters and a quintet out in front on the last piece were the exceptions.

 

The second set was given over to the music of John Rutter—five arrangements of Christmas songs and his “Gloria.” Rutter, a favorite composer and close friend of the late Emily Lowe, founder of the Chorale, was a good arranger. in these pieces he favored attractive melodies, voicings which brought out the simple harmonies underneath them, and interesting and always appropriate contrapuntal lines. The “Gloria,” a major composition, offered a complete change of style: where nearly everything else in the concert was written safely within traditional harmony, this piece features a great deal of dissonance. It is in three movements, of which the second was gentle and subdued, the first and third at full strength. The placing of the “Gloria” at the end provided a suitable climax to the evening.

 

Jim Cutty’s accompaniment throughout was expert— one sometimes wonders how a single piano can drive forty singers, but he does it. Dave Parker’s percussion work was solid, sometimes with major stentorian effect. Donna DeForrest’s flute playing, as a solo instrument riding above the chorus, was as it always is: accurate, with a very full sound, and greatly expressive. One could hear the effect of that: sometimes a really strong instrumentalist can call up, in the surrounding group, an extra level of emotional intensity; so it was here, again and again. This was particularly clear in the second set. Rutter wrote well for flute: in solo and background lines in the second and third selections, one could not have imagined the music played better than it was.

 

The “Gloria” was driven by the brass players from the high school, led on trumpet by Hulber Gagliardini and on trombone by Gary Hernandez, the band’s director.

 

Granted. it would be hard not to play well under Hulber’s strong and precise lead trumpet; even so, in attack, intonation, and all-around effective playing, these young musicians, especially the trumpets, were remarkable.  Only occasionally does the community get a chance to hear what an extraordinary job Gary Hernandez is doing over there—this was very much one of those times.

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