San Diego Spotlight : Composer’s Passion a Sacred Undertaking

Composer Randall Giles knows that writing church music puts him in a less than prestigious category among his peers.

“Within compositional circles, sacred music and the people who write it are seen as charming--at best--or as a curiosity. It’s no wonder, considering the general level of pop music sung to canned accompaniments that is now rampant in churches,” Giles observed, with some exasperation.

But Giles, a 41-year-old doctoral candidate in composition at UC San Diego, has pursued his muse without regard to the expectations of his contemporaries. Besides expressing his Christian faith, writing church music has landed him a number of commissions; Eton College, Chicago’s Roman Catholic Cathedral and the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena head the list of prestigious institutions requesting his services. In 1989, he wrote a piece for two organs for the University of San Diego, when the school dedicated a second pipe organ in its Founders Chapel.

His most recent composition, his St. John’s Passion, will be premiered at 4 p.m. Monday by the Los Angeles vocal ensemble I Cantori and members of the La Jolla Symphony at Rancho Santa Fe’s Church of the Nativity. I Cantori music director Edward Cansino will conduct the Passion, written for double chorus, eight soloists and orchestra.

Giles began composing his Passion (a traditional liturgical genre that recounts in musical terms the crucifixion of Jesus according to the Gospel narratives) last summer in Madras, India. That luxury was made possible by a $6,000 grant from a private party who asked that Giles not make his name public.

“I decided that the money would go farther in India than in La Jolla.”

While he was there, he decided to study the singing style and theory of South Indian Karnatic music. Exposure to Indian music did not change his compositional style, but it did encourage him to incorporate drones and other static harmonic material--traits of traditional South Indian music--into the Passion, his magnum opus to date.

“The most obvious audible influence is that of (the late French composer) Olivier Messiaen, notably his harmonic vocabulary and his use of modes,” Giles said. “The structure is similar to the Bach Passions, with liturgical texts dividing up the Gospel narrative.”

Giles’ peripatetic musical studies have contributed to his eclectic approach. The Oregon native, who did his undergraduate work at England’s University of York, studied privately in London with noted British composers Peter Maxwell Davies and Harrison Birtwistle. With the U.S. Peace Corps in Liberia, he developed a music curriculum based on indigenous Liberian music. Another project took him to Alaska, where he recorded traditional music in remote villages.

Among other student and faculty composers, noted for their commitment to the avant garde, Giles has been an anomaly.

“Compared to the UCSD music department, my own music is more conservative,” Giles acknowledged, “although, when I take my music to a church choir to learn, they find it quite difficult.”

Giles is not limited to writing church music, however.

“About half of my music is secular. I’ve written a string quartet, orchestral music, music for a Belgian mime troupe--even a television jingle.”

Encore, encore: The critics recorded their varying evaluations, but the patrons of the 1992 San Diego Opera season clearly loved Bizet’s “Carmen” and Mozart’s “Le Nozze di Figaro.”

According to general director Ian Campbell, now that all the box office totals have been tallied, 102% of the “Carmen” seats were sold and 95.8% of the “Figaro” tickets were grabbed by eager opera buffs. (A company gets more than 100% capacity by counting standing-room tickets and by reselling returned tickets. For the last few years, the highly successful Lyric Opera of Chicago has touted their entire season at 103% of capacity.)

Each of the five opera productions was given five performances, a first for the local company. Last season, only three operas were given five times, while the other two were given four.

Campbell added that about 63,000 seats were sold for the entire season. Slightly less popular than this year’s Mozart offering was Lehar’s operetta “The Merry Widow,” which sold 90.1% of its house. The lavish, season-opening “Der Rosenkavalier” by Richard Strauss, sold 86.6% of its house, slightly less than Campbell had predicted in his pre-season budget calculations.

Least popular was Britten’s “The Rape of Lucretia,” a stark tragedy written in the composer’s less-than-lyrical contemporary idiom. The opera, which had never been seen in San Diego, filled only 69.6% of the house. Like “Der Rosenkavalier” its attendance fell slightly below pre-season calculations.

For the company’s 1993 season, which includes no no 20th-Century pieces, Campbell expects a healthy return of this year’s subscribers and a stronger show at the box office.

Talmi debut. Er’ella Talmi will make her local orchestra debut with the San Diego Chamber Orchestra in January. The flutist, who has performed and recorded extensively in her native Israel, will play Franz Danzi’s D Minor Flute Concerto and four solo pieces by Faure orchestrated by her husband, Yoav Talmi, music director of the San Diego Symphony. Later in the season, Er’ella Talmi will play Ernst Bloch’s “Suite Modale” and three songs by Paul Ben-Haim with the Jewish Community Center Orchestra.

CRITIC’S CHOICE

PERCUSSION PIECE TO PREMIERE

“Where I Come From, the Season Never Changes” sounds like the title of a second-rate first novel by an aspiring San Diego writer. In truth, it is the name of Erik Grizwold’s latest percussion opus and will be premiered at 8 p.m. today at Ruse (3717 India St.). Joining Grizwold in this percussive tour be force is UC San Diego faculty member Steve Schick. The two mallet masters will also include works by 20th-Century composer Vinko Globokar in the concert.