This Singer Opts for Oldies

Southern California will always be a place for personal and professional transformation.

Take, for instance, soprano Kris Gould, who moved to Los Angeles from her native Oregon in 1987.

“I wanted to be a lead singer of a rock band,” said Gould, 37. “I wound up a lead singer in a renaissance band.”

Gould will be a soloist in the final concert of the 19th annual Baroque Music Festival Corona del Mar on Sunday at St. Michael & All Angels Church.

She had sung in rock bands while studying voice at the University of Oregon, in Eugene.

“Either I missed it or there wasn’t a lot of talk about early music,” she said. “No one said, ‘You should try this out.’ ”

But when she got to the Southland and began singing in different bands and doing studio work, people started telling her that early music--baroque, renaissance and medieval--would be perfect for her voice.

“Then things started happening,” said the singer, who lives in Westwood.

Gould began soloing with the Los Angeles Mozart Orchestra, Los Angeles Baroque Orchestra, Musica Viva, Long Beach Chamber Orchestra and the Los Angeles Chamber Singers/Cappella.

She also has sung in the J. Paul Getty Museum’s concert series (she will sing in different programs July 11 and July 24 at the Getty) and has toured nationally with Anonymous 4 and the L.A. Mozart Orchestra in Richard Einhorn’s “Voices of Light,” which accompanies Carl Dreyer 1928 silent film “The Passion of Joan of Arc.”

She has recorded for RCM and PolyGram and is a soloist in the Ensemble de Medici recordings of early music.

She also has spun out into modern music and crossover events, singing Gregorian chants with sitarist Nishat Khan at the Irvine Barclay Theatre last November (1998), and on a recent tour with him in New York and Massachusetts.

In college, she studied the standard languages--French, German and Italian--but that didn’t help as much as you might think when it came to singing early repertory.

“Renaissance French is different from modern French,” Gould said. “The pronunciation can be much different. Early Italian words are not easily recognized by people who speak Italian now.”

So she continues to study while forging her career.

“Anybody who sings a lot takes voice lessons,” she said. “It’s just a question of polishing and continuing to polish. It’s always good to have an outside set of ears whom you trust, who can provide some guidance.”

She hasn’t been tempted to do later repertory, which requires a large voice to project over a 100-piece orchestra.

“I have a sound that goes with early music. Puccini and I aren’t really soul mates. It’s not that I can’t enjoy his music, but I’m not physically cut out to do Puccini or anything written around that time.

“I don’t have that problem with Bach. I could sing Bach until the cows come home.”

On Sunday, she will sing in Bach’s Cantata No. 10 (“Meine Seel erhebt den Herren”), Albinoni’s Magnificat and Vivaldi’s “Beatus Vir.”

“All the music is really wonderful,” she said. “The Bach cantata isn’t one that I was familiar with. It has a gem of a soprano aria. It’s twisty-turny, which is fun. You don’t know where he’s going. It’s full of surprises.

“The Vivaldi is just a blast to sing. I’ve never sung any Albinoni before. These are not pieces commonly done. It’s fun to do something different. But they’re definitely something you can go home singing.”

Bach has a reputation for never giving singers a chance to breathe. Gould disagrees.

“Actually, Bach does a nice job for the voice,” she said. “Vivaldi has written some stuff that is quite challenging. He takes things up quite high. After all, he was a violinist.”

Future plans, besides the Getty concerts next month, include singing in Seattle in December and singing in New York over the next two years.

“I don’t think you can have a full-time career singing baroque music in L.A.,” Gould said. “[People] are given so many choices, which is wonderful, but it but splits the audience.”

* Soprano Kris Gould will sing in the final concert of the 19th annual Baroque Music Festival Corona del Mar on Sunday at 4 p.m. at St. Michael & All Angeles Church, 3233 Pacific View Drive, $25. (949) 760-7887.

* A festival instrumental chamber music concert will take place today at 8 p.m. in Sherman Library & Gardens, 2645 E. Coast Highway. $30. (949) 760-7887.