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REVIEW: Tulsa Oratorio Chorus
Published: 4/19/2009 9:31 AM
Last Modified: 4/19/2009 9:31 AM

Donald Studebaker is not one for long goodbyes. Studebaker conducted his final concert as artistic director of the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus Saturday night at Trinity Episcopal Church – a program of “Masses and Motets” that took less than 90 minutes to complete.

And his own valedictory remarks, made just before the performance of the program’s final piece, were typically brief yet no less heartfelt.

He said that it “has been a great joy over the past seven seasons to be a part of this ensemble,” and stressed that the most important aspect about a group such as the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus is not the person who stands on the podium “but the ensemble itself, and the continued relationship between the people on the stage, and the people in the audience.”

Still, Studebaker added, he is confident that the chorus will be left in good hands, and announced that Tim Sharp, the executive director of the American Choral Directors Association and a resident of Edmond, will take over as artistic director next season.

As for the concert itself, it was finely modulated performance from the hushed, delicate a cappella strains of the “Ubi Caritas” by Durufle and Rachmaninoff’s “Bogoroditse Devo” to the surprisingly forceful, almost defiant Solemn Mass by Louis Vierne.

Those two opening pieces by Durufle and Rachmaninoff showed the chorus at its best. Any large group of singers can sound impressive when singing loudly; to be able to sing softly and create a sound that is also richly and well-layered is very difficult. And that is exactly what Studebaker and the chorus accomplished.

The only moment that did not seem to work as one might have hoped was the “Lobet denn Herrn, alle Heiden,” by J.S. Bach. It might have been the result of my sitting too close to the singers – the Chamber Chorus group, which moved out of the chancel to sing this piece – but the polyphony one expected to hear became simply a soup of sound, the individual lines almost indistinguishable.

Perhaps the acoustics of the church were more forgiving for those sitting farther back – they may have heard this music more clearly. But the piece that followed, Mozart’s “Regina Coeli,” sounded much better, though performed by the same group standing in the same place.

The women of the Chorus were featured in Faure’s Messe Basse, which is filled with melodies that flow with a conversational ease, so that one could imagine this music being as much at home in a theater as in a cathedral. And this quality was made all the more sweeter by the ensemble’s performance.

The Vierne closed out the program, and it gave organist Casey Cantwell the opportunity to let the church’s pipe organ really roar, especially in that defiant sounding “Kyrie,” in which the chorus’ forceful singing was punctuated by harsh, dissonant chordal blasts. The exuberant “Gloria” built to a lusty “Amen,” then the piece slowly subsided down to the final hushed notes of the “Agnus Dei.”

After the concert, there were few dry eyes in the reception room as Studebaker bid the chorus members goodbye, one by one.

But this is not an end – it is a beginning. And thank you, Donald Studebaker, for bringing the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus to this place, and doing so with impeccable style and artistry. You will be a tough act to follow.







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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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