32 P ho to by Rand all K ezar

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Photo by Randall Kezar
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Rockingham Choral Society Membership, Christmas 2015
Soprano
Alto
Nicole Bixler
Barb Brabson
Debra Di Nola
Nancy Crawford
Darlene Graczyk
Holley Daschbach
Katy Kramer
Diane Fiske
Bethany Larsen
Toy Fountain
Hsin-Ming Ting
Sally Gallagher
Nan Nutt
Claudia McQueen
Joan Pratt
Karen Potvin
Pam Schwotzer
Lynn Rockwell
Carol Seely
Judy Tracey
Elizabeth Smardz
Beverley Viglione
Judy White-Hosker
Jean Waldron
Amy Werninger
Tenor
Clark Bourne
James Donnelly
Jack Maull
Peter McVay
Robert Morse
Charles Smith
Bass
Paul Gustavson
Bruce Henderson
Michael Huizenga
Bill Hull
Mark Shillingburg
Cliff Sinnott
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How You Can Help...
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We enjoy and encourage growing support and participation from our audience and friends.
There are many ways to show your interest and support.
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The Rockingham Choral Society is a registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible
nonprofit charity.
Please visit our web site at www.rockinghamchoralsociety.org for complete
details and to join our electronic mailing list.
Please either use the mail form below or visit our website to make a donation, pay for your advertisement, shop at our online RCS store, or even
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The Rockingham Choral Society
P.O. Box 103
Exeter NH 03833
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The Rockingham Choral Society
The Rockingham Choral Society was organized in March 1957 with the dream of
performing choral masterpieces from all periods, including works with orchestra.
One year later the dream became a reality as seventy voices combined with fourteen
orchestra members in a complete performance of Handel’s Messiah at the Exeter
Town Hall. John D. Wicks, Professor of Music at the University of New Hampshire, founded and directed the group in its early years.
Since that first concert in Exeter fifty-eight years ago the Choral Society, with membership ranging from forty to ninety voices, has presented annual choral concerts in
the Christmas season and in the spring to audiences in the New Hampshire seacoast
area.
The group has been accompanied by a number of distinguished local musicians over
the years, beginning with the late Madeline Meredith and continuing with Margery
Forbes, Jeffery Bunker, Vickie Patch, Edie Adams, and for eleven years Gail Adams
of Kittery. Jeannie Goodwin of Dover is currently in her 19th year as accompanist
for rehearsals and performances.
A. Irving Forbes, chair of the Music Department at Phillips Exeter Academy, assumed the director’s position in 1964 and conducted the group for ten years.
In 1974, Kenneth Kiesler, a University of New Hampshire student, began his four
years as music director.
Kish Piano & Recording Studio
In the fall of 1978 Henry Wing, then Associate Professor of Music at UNH, became
director and the society continued to flourish under his baton until his retirement in
the spring of 2008. He instituted a policy of choosing the vocal soloists from the
membership and hiring the best orchestral players from New Hampshire and Maine,
including faculty and students from the UNH Music Department. This has given
the singers a chance to perform and our audiences the opportunity to hear many
great choral masterpieces in their original form.
In his seventh year with this Winter Concert is our director Andrew Gaydos. A lifelong advocate for the choral arts, he has performed with and conducted numerous
professional and amateur ensembles in the Philadelphia and Boston regions. We
look forward to many more years of bringing all forms of choral works to southern
New Hampshire.
Sound Engineer and Piano teacher; David Kish
100 Post Rd., Greenland NH
603-433-9593
Www.pianolessonsnh.com
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The Director
Andrew W. Gaydos is a graduate of Moravian College (B. Mus.) and The
Eastman School of Music (M. Mus). A lifelong advocate for the choral arts, he has performed with and
conducted numerous professional and amateur ensembles in the Philadelphia and Boston regions. Highlights
have included Gerald Finzi’s In Terra Pax, Born A King
by William Lloyd Webber (Andrew’s father), O Haupt
voll Blut und Wunden by Felix Mendelssohn, Mozart’s
Coronation Mass KV 317, Camille Saint-Saëns’ Christmas Oratorio, Ralph
Vaughan Williams’s Five Mystical Songs and numerous productions of the Mozart Requiem and Handel’s Messiah. Mr. Gaydos has taught in both private
and public institutions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New
Hampshire. He is the choral director at the First Congregational Church in
Kingston, NH. Mr. Gaydos resides in Hampstead, NH with his wife and two
daughters. He teaches private voice and piano lessons in Hampstead, Kingston, and Newton, NH.
The Accompanist
Jeannie F. Goodwin graduated with a B.S. in Music Education from the Univer-
sity of New Hampshire. She now maintains an active piano
studio in her home where she has worked with students of
all ages, although she now specializes in adults. Active in the
Music Teacher’s National Association, she has served on
state, division and national levels. She has also been active in
church music, founding several vocal and handbell choirs at
her Congregational Church in Dover, New Hampshire. She
is a professional accompanist, and especially enjoys her work with the Rockingham
Choral Society. Ms. Goodwin and her husband are avid sailors and have cruised
their sailboat “Sea Natural” on the East Coast from Nova Scotia to the Bahamas.
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Special Thanks to our Contributors
2015-2016
Benefactors
Seabrook Park
D.F. Richard Energy
Katherine Kramer
Darlene Graczyk
Pam and Mike Schwotzer
Alicia and Eric Fachon
Patrons
Melanie Shields
Scott and Carol Seely
Cliff Sinnott
Joan Pratt
North Hampton Dental
Richard Hughes
Signed Sealed and Delivered
Judy White-Hosker
Sponsors
Big Hit Media
Christine's Crossing
Bill Hull
Joseph Miller
Milbury Associates
In Memoriam
Joe Stieglitz – In Memory Of Dr. Pamela Bertram
Jeannie Goodwin – In Memory of, Pam Bertram
a great supporter of the arts
Scott and Carol Seely– in memory of Peter and Fran Beirl
Henry Wing Foundation
Jeannie Goodwin
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Stuart Parker
Dr. Pam Bertram
In Memoriam
Officers of the Rockingham Choral Society 2015-16
Director, Andrew Gaydos
President - Clark Bourne
1st Vice President - Jack Maul
2nd,Vice President - Charlie Smith
Secretary - Pam Schwotzer
Treasurer - Liz Smardz*
George Calef Fine Foods LLC
495 Calef Hwy
Barrington, NH 03825
Northeast corner Routes 125 &
9 on 125
(603) 664-2471
Compliments of
Jim & Becky & Rayce Calef
Soprano Section Leader - Nicole Bixler*
Alto Section Leader - Claudia McQueen
Tenor Section Leader - Bob Morse*
Bass Section Leader - Bill Hull
Recruitment / Publicity- Carol Seely*
Concert coordinator - Judy White-Hosker
*-not pictured
Hours: Tuesday through Friday 8:00-7:00
Saturday 8:00-6:00
Sunday 8:00-5:00
Closed Mondays
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Having given us quite a stretch of gentle music Bush now increases the temperature significantly with ‘Make we merry both more and less.’ This is a virtuoso scherzo, which employs frequent harmonic shifts and is possessed of tremendous rhythmic vitality.
The next movement is a short and tender lento tranquillo setting of the fifteenth century
English carol, ‘This Endris night’.
The next carol is also English and from the fifteenth century and here again there’s a departure from the composer’s intentions. ‘I sing of a Maiden’ is a beautiful soprano solo, high
and lilting.
We remain in fifteenth century England for ‘The Coventry Carol.’ The music of the opening and closing stanzas is subdued and very sad but in the central section, where Herod confronts us, there is a fitting degree of bite and ferocity.
In the finale the joy of Christmas reasserts itself with an extrovert setting of ‘I saw three
ships’, complete with pealing choral bells. Here the singing is lively and joyful and benefits
from much better attention to the dynamic markings. However, Geoffrey Bush has a surprise
in store. Instead of ending his cantata with the fairly obvious joyfulness of this carol he
brings the work back full circle, reprising briefly the various strands of vocal and orchestral
material that we first heard in the Prelude. The work ends quietly. It is the Peace of Christmas that has the last word.
The work “Et In Terra Pax” by Gerald Finzi is a setting of two verses from Robert Bridges’
fine poem, ‘Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913’, subtitled Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis (Peace and
goodwill to all men), which Finzi imaginatively and skilfully uses to frame St Luke’s account
of the angels’ appearance to the shepherds. In Terra Pax is subtitled ‘Christmas Scene’, and
Finzi explained that ‘the Nativity becomes a vision seen by a wanderer on a dark and frosty
Christmas Eve in our own familiar landscape’. This placing of the Biblical story into an English pastoral context is entirely consistent with Finzi’s close affinity with the English Romantic tradition, and his lifelong dedication to the creation of his own rural paradise at his home
in Ashmansworth, near Newbury.
The two soloists and the chorus have clearly defined musical roles; the baritone soloist takes
the voice of the poet, the soprano is cast as the angel, whilst the chorus narrates the familiar
biblical text. In the opening section the poet is standing on a hill contemplating the events of
the very first Christmas, the sound of the distant church bells becoming for him the sound of
an angel choir. This image is expressed in a pealing-bells motif which, together with the refrain from ‘The First Nowell’, provides the musical fabric of the piece.
Finzi, perhaps more than most, must have been aware of the terrible irony of Bridges’ reassuring Pax hominibus being swiftly followed by the outbreak of World War I, yet despite
this, and despite his own terminal decline, “In Terra Pax” is a radiant, optimistic work of
great beauty and sincerity; a miniature masterpiece that unites emotions, images and the familiar events of the Christmas story into a compelling musical narrative that is at once personal yet universal.
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Directors Notes (continued)
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“Jesus Christ The Apple Tree” is an American text set by English composer Elizabeth
Poston. A woman of many talents, Elizabeth Poston, was born in 1905 in Hertfordshire. She
was trained in piano, and studied at RAM and later in Continental Europe. Her first published works were in 1925, and continued to show musical excellence by winning awards.
During the war years she was employed by BBC as a music director for the European service. She has produced a wide range of music compositions for a variety of venues, from
radio and TV to church choir repertoire.
Born in 1920, Geoffrey Bush was a chorister at Salisbury Cathedral, and later educated at
Lancing College and Balliol College, Oxford. He jointed the staff of the Extra-Mural Department of Oxford University in 1947, moving to London University in 1952. Elected Chairman
for the year of the Composers Guild of Great Britain, in 1964 Geoffrey Bush visited the
USSR as delegate of the Guild. From 1952-1987 Geoffrey Bush was the Staff Tutor in Music
at the Extra-Mural Department of London University.
An ardent champion of English music, he wrote widely on the subject, also contributing regularly to BBC Radio 3 programmes, including Music Magazine and Music Weekly. “A
Christmas Cantata” is one of his major works.
A Christmas Cantata (1947) is a rather longer work, but the orchestration is restricted to
strings and oboe. It was composed for the Musical Society of Balliol College, Oxford by
whom it was premiered that year under the direction of its dedicatee, Ronald Gordon
(individual movements are dedicated to other Oxford friends, identified only by their initials.)
It is the sort of anthology work which British composers, including Vaughan Williams and
Britten, tend to do so well. For his cantata Bush chose a number of well-known, mainly English traditional carols and wove them into a delightful tapestry. Several of the carols settings
use traditional melodies. The treatment of all the carols, especially the well known ones, is
very thoughtful. There are often unexpected and subtle harmonic touches, either in the accompaniment or within the choir. However, the carols are never overwhelmed and their simple direct spirit is retained.
www.rockinghamchoralsociety.org
The piece begins with a relatively extended orchestral prelude. The music is innocent and
transparent, very firmly in the best English pastoral tradition. The light scoring ensures that
the textures are airy. Eventually the sopranos sing a gentle ‘Lullay’ before the male voices
chant an opening prayer.
The first carol is ‘The Seven Joys of Mary.’ The melody that is sung by the choir is apparently a traditional tune but not the one often associated with the carol. The tune is robust,
foursquare and quintessentially English. The movement is described as a Theme and Variations but ingeniously the variations are in the accompaniment. The strange remote string
harmonies for the fifth variation (‘the sixth good joy’) are particularly notable.
After this a lovely chorale-like setting of a poem by Hilaire Belloc, ‘When Jesus Christ Was
Four Years Old’, recalls the chorales of Bach - as Vaughan Williams was to do a few years
later in his own Christmas cantata, Hodie. This setting is simple in style but harmonically
sophisticated.
There follows a setting of the Czech carol, ‘Rocking’, which is typical of Bush’s treatment of
his core material in remaining faithful to the original carols while presenting them in a new
light without suffocating their direct, straightforward nature.
www.Travelandnature.net
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Directors Notes
The Magnificat is one of the most extended of Finzi’s shorter choral works, and
was written for the choir of Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, the composer’s first overseas commission. It was intended for a Christmas Vespers service,
rather than for standard liturgical use, concluding with an Amen not a Gloria, and
the composer planned an orchestral version from the onset. It is typical of Finzi’s lyrical approach with a
great deal of contrapuntal writing. There is also great drama in the work, with the scattering of the proud, and
the shewing of strength being particularly forceful. The solo parts are generally brief but telling.
Joseph Barnby, “A Cradle-Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” was born on August 12, 1838 in York,
England and died on January 28, 1896 in London, England. Barnby was educated at the RAM and after
serving as organist in several London and York churches he accepted a position as organist at St Andrew's in 1863. There he developed lavish choral services, including the first use of harp in an Anglican
service (1866). He continued these services on an even grander scale at St. Anne's in Soho, where he
founded a choir that served to introduce the public to then little-known works of Handel, Beethoven,
and Gounod. Barnby was a prolific composer of mostly choral and vocal works. His compositions, influenced by Gounod, are melodic and emotional, and some remain popular to this day.
“As With Gladness Men of Old” by Charles V. Stanford was inspired by the Epiphany gospel, Matthew 1:1-11. The poet William C. Dix (b. Bristol, England, 1837; d. Cheddar, Somerset, England, 1898)
wrote this text in 1858 while recuperating from illness. The text was first published in A. H. Ward's
Hymns for Public Worship and Private Devotion (1860). The following year it was published in both
Dix's Hymns of Love and Joy and Hymns Ancient and Modern.
“Angels We Have Heard On High” Gloria
Angels we have heard on high
Sweetly singing o’er the plains,
And the mountains in reply
Echoing their joyous strains.
Refrain:
Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Gloria, in excelsis Deo!
Shepherds, why this jubilee?
Why your joyous strains prolong?
What the gladsome tidings be
Which inspire your heav’nly song?
At age 12, John Bacchus Dykes (“Christmas Song” and “Sleep Holy Babe”) became assistant organist at St. John’s Church in Hull, where his grandfather was vicar. He studied at Wakefield and St. Catharine’s Hall in Cambridge, where he was a Dikes Scholar, President of the Cambridge University Musical
Society, and earned a BA in Classics. In 1848, he became Curate at Malton, Yorkshire. For a short time,
he was Canon of Durham Cathedral, then Precentor (1849-62). In 1862 he became Vicar of St. Oswald’s,
Durham (he named a son John St. Oswald Dykes, and one of his tunes St. Oswald).
One of Edward Elgar’s small gems, “I sing the Birth,” dates from the late 1920s. The carol “I sing the
Birth,” a setting of Ben Jonson’s text (“An hymn on the Nativity of my Saviour”), was completed on 30
October 1928 and first performed at the Royal Albert Hall by the Royal Choral Society under the direction of Malcolm Sargent. An unusual conception, the piece begins with a modal alleluia (textually added
by Elgar) which proceeds to intersperse monodic passages for tenor, alto, and bass before the whole
choir engages in a full, four-part harmonization (the effect of which is both impressive and deeply emotional). This entire process is repeated as if to emphasize the prayerful simplicity of the setting, though
the closing alleluias, which invoke the harmonic intensity of the Violin Concerto’s slow movement, have
a more complex enigmatic quality in their conclusion on the dominant.
Another of Elgar’s miniatures “Lo! Christ the Lord is born” was written by the composer in 1908.
The text is by the English poet Shapcott Wensley (1855–1917). Of the more or less obscure solo and
part-songs, one in particular stands out a little by virtue of appearing as an illustration in many works on
Elgar: it was the Elgars’ Christmas card of 1897 that featured a part-song, Grete Malverne on a Rock.
The words were by W. Salt Brassington, from a book called Historic Worcestershire published in 1894,
to which one of the subscribers was ‘ELGAR, Mr. E., Forli, Malvern’.
Influenced as a composer principally by Bach and Brahms, C. Hubert Parry (“When Christ Was Born
of Mary Free”) evolved a powerful diatonic style which itself greatly influenced future English composers such as Elgar and Vaughan Williams. His own full development as a composer was almost certainly
hampered by the immense amount of work he took on, but his energy and charisma, not to mention his
abilities as a teacher and administrator, helped establish art music at the center of English cultural life. He
collaborated with the poet Robert Bridges, and was responsible for many books on music, including The
Evolution of the Art of Music (1896), the third volume of the Oxford History of Music (1907) and a
study of Bach (1909).
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Sponsor a Singer
“I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson.
And so we make our lives by what we love.”
John Cage (composer)
Numbers only tell the bottom line of budgets and finances but leave out the
all-important human components. Let me share some math and share a few
numbers of this organization - one’s which especially reflect the amazing human commitment which has kept RCS humming for 58 years!
In 1957 the Rockingham Choral Society began as a fledgling ensemble of 30
or so singers and has steadily grown into one of the area’s finest Choral ensembles. Over the years, our members have covered the spectrum from retired folks in their 60’s and 70’s to young singers in their early 20’s. Though
diverse in age, professions, and cultures, all have one thing in common, a
deep commitment to share our talents with other singers and the community
while performing beautiful choral music. In 58 years, RCS has brought many
fine singers together here in Rockingham County, performed over a hundred
concerts and entertained thousands in our audiences. . Here are a few numbers that detail this personal involvement and commitment:
12 rehearsals per concert x 2hours = 24 hours
20 hours x 45 singers = 1,080 hours
1,080 hours x 2 semesters= 2,160 hours
2,160 hours x 57 years =
123,120 volunteer hours devoted to music
After analyzing these numbers you can quickly see the considerable investment of personal time, energy, and of course, talent. So many of your friends
and colleagues have devoted their time and lives to this wonderful ensemble
- a number so large it actually encompasses many lifetimes!
, we invite you to help us with our art and consider selecting a friend or family member for our Sponsor A Singer program. Your Singer will be delighted
by your sponsorship and your tax deductible gift will go a long way in ensuring our continued success.
Please take a minute during intermission and stop by the table at the lobby
to add your own personal note to our sponsorship songboard.
Thank you for your continued support.
Clark Bourne
President, Rockingham Choral Society
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Please join us…
in January as we rehearse for our spring concert “Friends
and Enemies of Mozart”
A cultural icon on the New Hampshire Seacoast, RCS attracts members from
throughout Rockingham County and bordering towns in Maine and Massachusetts. Singers rehearse weekly at the Phillips Exeter Academy Forrestal –
Bowld Music Center for the winter and spring performances.
The purpose of RCS is to foster the art of performing choral music of all periods. The society strives to present concerts of the highest quality to the
community. Foremost, this group exists for the enjoyment and education of
singers and audience.
The Rockingham Choral Society has a widely diverse membership. It is a
multi generational, multi cultural and multi interest group. Medical professionals, academics,
homemakers, attorneys, librarians, bankers, military and private industry are all represented
in the society. All enjoy the spirit of singing and
sharing their musical gift with others. All soloists are chosen from the
membership. This group is truly a valued cultural asset for members and
audience alike.
Rehearsal at Phillips Exeter