Pacific Chorale to Show Off Its Creative Gifts

The big new piece by Pacific Chorale composer in residence James Hopkins doesn’t arrive until June, but two new smaller-scale works by Hopkins will get their premieres tonight at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

Music director John Alexander will conduct Hopkins’ “Come to Me in the Silence of the Night” and “A Calendar.” The big work, “Songs of the Sea,” will require an orchestra. But “Come to Me” is an a cappella piece, and “Calendar” was written for children’s chorus with piano accompaniment.

“These two pieces are really gifts in appreciation to the chorale,” Hopkins said in a recent phone interview from his home in Pasadena. “And I wanted to do something nice for the children’s choir.”

Hopkins’ relationship with the chorale began in 1993 when Edward and Helen Shanbrom of Santa Ana commissioned him to write a piece commemorating their son, David Lee Shanbrom, who died in a traffic accident in 1986. The commission marked the chorale’s 25th anniversary. The Shanbroms also endowed the composer-in-residency chair at the chorale. Hopkins’ appointment runs through June 1998.

In setting words to music, Hopkins emphasizes what he calls “intelligibility.”

“My guiding principle is that since the text came first, it doesn’t need my input. Any good text will stand by itself. You have to respond to that. So textural intelligibility is absolutely paramount in importance on any kind of text other than the most well known, like ‘Hallelujah’ or the mass text, where no one is really listening anyway. . . . I try to balance real melody with what the poet has said.”

In the case of “Come to Me,” the text is a short poem, “Echo,” from 1862 by British writer Christian Rossetti.

“Since the word ‘echo’ never appears, that doesn’t really say a great deal about the text,” Hopkins said. “ ‘Come to me’ is the first line. Her texts tend to be very sad--not so much depressing, but there’s not too much happiness there. This text struck me. It was wistful, very amenable to music.”

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Hopkins picked the poem from “a file of texts that have attracted me. I don’t spend a great deal of time finding texts that are suitable--that have vivid imagery, short and non-problematic words. It’s rather time-consuming. So when I find something that hits a sympathetic chord, I make a note and keep it in this file.”

The text for “Calendar” is by another Brit, Sara Coleridge. It was written in 1834.

“It goes through the 12 months in two-line couplets. Each month gets two lines. It’s sort of nostalgic for the way life was back in the 19th century. Some of the words are a little out of date. For instance, for one of the months, there’s the line ‘We’re out shooting pheasant,’ I think. In any case, I think it’s an attractive poem that is more than simply quaint.

“Truthfully enough, harmonically it’s more adventurous than the other piece,” Hopkins said. “I’ve never written a piece for young singers. I didn’t know how far I could push them.

“But I tried to put in some things that would stretch their ears and their singing experience, also keeping it within a strictly defined vocal range and rhythms that didn’t complicate things, though I think children have far more abilities in these kinds of things than we tend to give them credit for. The kids reacted at first, ‘This is really hard.’ But they got over that in about 15 minutes.”

* Two new works by Pacific Chorale composer-in-residence James Hopkins will be on the chorale’s a cappella program tonight at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. John Alexander will conduct. Works by Rachmaninoff, Durufle, Randall Thompson and others will complete the program. 8 p.m. $15-$39. (714) 662-2345.