PASADENA REPERTORY SINGERS

The musical birthday party given by the 29-voice Pasadena Repertory Singers Sunday afternoon in celebration of the Pasadena Centennial was very much like most anniversary celebrations: a little long and a bit too strait-laced, but warming and even surprising in the final analysis.

The concert, given in the Pasadena First Congregational Church, was dominated by music of this century: the premiere of “The Golden Calf,” by local composer Joseph Kantor, and Leonard Bernstein’s anti-war choral work, “Chichester Psalms,” here reduced for organ, brass and percussion.

In the Kantor, the exuberance of the group went a long way toward making the 20-minute work a success. An Exodus-based rumination on the founding of the Hebrew nation, “The Golden Calf” struck a conservative balance between atonality and mainstream program music. Kantor, listed as a financial supporter of the singing ensemble, demonstrates a keen knowledge of writing for voices, and the ensemble, with incisive attacks and excellent diction, responded admirably.

“Chichester Psalms” went less well, although conductor Margaret Zeleny directed her charges--including the California Children’s Choir--with point and passion. Much of the composer’s trademark polyrhythms emerged flabby and ill-defined, and the upper voices rose consistently sharp in the work’s rougher goings. Percussionist Eric Forrester, given a huge amount to do in this arrangement, provided a reliable and colorful rhythmic underpinning, however.

A detached and clinical Magnificat of J.S. Bach closed the program. The orchestra, listed in the program as the Little Symphony, was more than big enough for its task, but the singers seemed less than gripped by Bach’s more muted dramatics. But bass Craig Kingsbury was forceful and assured in his aria, and oboist Marsha Taylor brightened the proceedings whenever she took a solo.