VocalEssence Turns Forty

If anyone knows how to throw a party, it’s Philip Brunelle and Garrison Keillor. And on the occasion of VocalEssence’s fortieth anniversary, they’re pulling out all the stops with a bash at Orchestra Hall. A month later, VocalEssence celebrates its ongoing mission to “celebrate choral music beyond the war horses,” as artistic director Brunelle describes it, with a rare performance of Hector Berlioz’s Te Deum at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

With Keillor as host, the VocalEssence fortieth birthday party promises to be nothing if not outrageous. Keillor is writing new words to Johann Strauss’s Blue Danube and the chorus will enter waltzing. He wanted a marching band, so Brunelle engaged the University of Minnesota Marching Band. The program features a survey of the chorus’s history—both hits and misses. Special guests, such as soprano Maria Jette and dancer James Sewell, also help enliven the proceedings.

The evening has a serious purpose—raising funds to benefit VocalEssence’s community engagement programs—and features some serious music, including premieres by composers Kitty Brazelton and Stephen Paulus. But there will be a good measure of silliness as well, such as tenors Vern Sutton and Dan Dressen performing a piece from Francis Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, the only duet in the repertoire for two tenors on roller skates.

Poulenc is also featured in Musique de France, along with other French pieces that “sound great in a cathedral,” says Brunelle. “For the first half of the program, I wanted to focus on important twentieth-century French compositions for choir.” There are pieces from Poulenc’s contemporaries Pierre Villette and Daniel–Lesueur, as well as works by Olivier Messiaen, Maurice Durufle, and Charles–Marie Widor. “These are not names you would know from the concert hall or the opera house,” says Brunelle. “But they each have their own unique sound and singers love to perform them.”

But the main focus of the event is the Berlioz Te Deum. It is a massive work, deploying an army of vocal and instrumental forces, including a tenor soloist, choir, children’s choir, a large orchestra that includes twelve harps, and a church organ. “It is magnificently grand,” Brunelle says. “But the concert hall would be the wrong acoustic. It was written for an acoustic like the Cathedral, where the chords can waft on and create a real impact of sound. I want to line up some new converts.” Fortieth birthday: Sept. 14. Orchestra Hall, 1111 Nicollet Mall, Mpls., 612-371-5656. Berlioz’s Te Deum: Oct. 17. Cathedral of St. Paul, 239 Selby Ave., St. Paul, 612-371-5656