When Valley Master Chorale Raises Its Voice, People Listen

The Valley Master Chorale of Northridge will have a lot for which to be thankful this holiday season.

While many performing arts organizations have been going through rough times, the San Fernando Valley chorale, which opens its season tomorrow night with a concert featuring Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” is growing in an impressive manner. In the last three years the chorale roster has increased from 80 to 150 voices, and it has boosted its budget from about $75,000 to about $150,000 a year.

Average attendance has increased from about 500 a concert to the point where some performances in the 1,200-seat Reseda High School auditorium are near sellouts.

“I think that there is a strong feeling in this town that classical music is just not going to make it in the Valley,” said John Alexander, artistic director of the chorale. “We are out to get rid of that idea forever. We are proving that idea wrong.”

Alexander, who also teaches at Cal State Northridge and conducts the Orange County Pacific Chorale, took over in 1987 at a time of great change for the Valley Master Chorale, which was organized a decade earlier as an all-volunteer chorus.

Not only did its board hire Alexander, it also approved a merger between the chorale and the Masterworks Chorale, a student chorus founded by Alexander at CSUN.

The changes did not come without some bitterness. The former conductor of the Valley Master Chorale, which had been based at Pierce College until Alexander took over, went public with his displeasure at being replaced. And some members of the chorale were asked to leave after Alexander re-auditioned all the singers.

Fortunately for Alexander, nothing heals old wounds like success.

“There was some hubbub,” Alexander said, “but three years later that is all definitely past history.”

The new administration of the chorale has attracted grants to help in its development, including one obtained last year from the National Endowment for the Arts. Alexander was quick to point out that the grant was won before the NEA, amid great controversy, began to demand that grantees sign a pledge that put a restriction on subject matter.

“I still don’t think they would find very much objectionable with what we do,” said Alexander with a laugh, “although if they ever bothered to read a translation of the ‘Carmina Burana,’ I guess we might be in trouble.”

The highly popular 1937 Orff work is a setting of 13th-Century Latin poems, some of which are a bit ribald.

Alexander has sought to attract audiences by programming well-known works from the chorale repertoire, such as “Carmina Burana,” Mozart’s “Requiem” and Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis,” mixed with more obscure pieces.

“My goal is to bring in works that I know will appeal to audiences, but I do not want to repeat the same standard literature over and over,” he said. “I picked out some works that are seldom performed, works you don’t hear at the Music Center.”

As examples of his somewhat unorthodox programming, he listed Anton Bruckner’s “Te Deum,” Gerald Finzi’s “Ode for St. Cecilia” and Florent Schmitt’s setting of Psalm 47.

He tends to choose large-scale works that allow a chorus to let loose with a big, impressive sound, and he is certainly not above programming lighter fare from the world of musical comedy. “I’d say we are doing about 75% classical and 25% of the lighter material,” he said. “We will do one of the lighter concerts per season. They are fun for the singers and for the audience.”

This season, the chorale will do an April concert called “From Brahms to Broadway.”

Although Alexander has occasionally scheduled serious 20th-Century works, such as those by Orff, Vincent Persichetti and Leonard Bernstein, he admits that he has shied away from more avant-garde composers. “I can program works that are considered more adventurous in Orange County because I have been there a long time,” he said. “But when you are in the process of building a chorus and an audience, you have to stick closer to the standards. And in the Valley, we are definitely still in the building stage.

“Later, we’ll go out on the limb a little more.”

However, within the next five years Alexander hopes to present “Harmonium,” a chorus and orchestra piece by John Adams. Adams, who is often categorized as one of the minimalist composers, is best known for his opera “Nixon in China.”

“I think ‘Harmonium’ is an excellent work and that Adams has a clear understanding of choral sonorities,” Alexander said. “It may be considered a little unusual, but it works and it is very listenable. I think people will like it.”

“Carmina Burana” is the only work at the upcoming concert that Alexander will be conducting. He has left the balance of the program to David Aks, who teaches at CSUN and prepares the CSUN Symphony to accompany the chorale at concerts.

“I have been preparing the orchestra for the chorale for a couple of years,” Aks said. “John came to me and said that he thought the only neighborly thing to do was to let me actually conduct a bit in concert.”

Aks will be leading the orchestra in two short works--Dvorak’s brooding “Othello” overture and then Brahms’ “Nanie,” an equally dark piece for orchestra and chorus.

“The first line of that one, in German, is, ‘Even the beautiful must die,’ ” Aks said. “That’s not exactly cheerful, but it’s a beautiful, beautiful nine-minute work.”

The Valley Master Chorale of Northridge opens its season tomorrow night at Reseda High School auditorium with a concert of works by Orff, Dvorak and Brahms. Tickets are $10 and $15. For information, call (818) 362-3572.