I’m headed to Moscow in a few weeks to attend a special concert.  On Tuesday, May 24, at Rachmaninov Concert Hall, a large choir from Moscow, together with choirs gathered from several other cities scattered across Russia, will perform Edward Scheve’s oratorio, The Death and Resurrection of Christ accompanied by a professional orchestra and with distinguished soloists under the direction of Oleg Romanenko. This concert marks the Russian premiere of a monumental work that was composed in Grinnell in 1908, when Edward Scheve (1865-1924) was on the faculty of Grinnell College. Through some strange quirks of fate, and due as well to the expressivity and beauty of the music, Edward Scheve’s oratorio became popular in Russia and Ukraine among members of the Baptist church – a minority denomination that has at times experienced great oppression in Russia. Musicians in the Baptist church sustained a passionate devotion to Scheve’s music through the many decades of the Soviet Union and afterward.  Performances were accompanied by piano or in other arrangements, however, because they did not have access to the orchestral score.  For all those decades, the only extant copy of the full orchestral score of Scheve’s oratorio was sitting in the Grinnell College archives virtually unnoticed. 

Several years ago, having heard that Scheve had taught at Grinnell, an enterprising young conductor from Moscow named Oleg Romanenko contacted me by email asking about Scheve’s manuscript.  I sent him a digital copy of the archival materials, and Romanenko went to work creating a modern, digitized version of the score and parts, with the original German text translated into Russian.  Now, after much diligent work, Romanenko has succeeded in organizing a fittingly grand presentation of the complete work with the authorized orchestral parts.  The impact of this project extends beyond this one concert, however: once they are made more widely available, these new orchestral materials will also facilitate future performances of the work in the US and worldwide. I was so struck by this story, with its unexpected intertwining of distant lives and communities, and by the concert organizers’ admirable artistic devotion, that I decided to travel to Moscow to meet with the musicians, to flesh out these intriguing historical links between Moscow and Grinnell, and to participate in the concert as a member of the choir. 

Although this upcoming concert marks the Russian premiere, it will not be the European premiere.  The Moscow concert is reminiscent of the work’s original European debut in Berlin in 1910, an ambitious event that received notice even across the Atlantic: the April 10, 1910 edition of The New York Times described a concert where Scheve, “Dean of the Music Faculty at Grinnell,” conducted Arthur Nikisch’s Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, a chorus of 300 and a solo quartet in a performance of Scheve’s Passion—‘The Death and Resurrection of Christ.” It is hard to say why Grinnell College has, up until recently, paid relatively little notice to Edward Scheve as part of its heritage.  In the early years of the 20^th century, when Scheve was active, Grinnell College included a separate, thriving music conservatory.  During the difficult years of World War II, the conservatory suffered, and it was eventually shut down.  We could speculate that, when it disappeared, the Music Conservatory tended to fade in the college’s memory, and Edward Scheve with it, while other aspects of the college’s heritage were brought to the fore.  Certainly, however, given his impressive achievements, Edward Scheve deserves attention as an important figure in the life of Grinnell College.  Scheve’s obituary in the Grinnell Herald in 1924 spoke of him with warm reverence: “The magnitude of his genius is greater than any of us who were associated with him yet realize. He was a great teacher, a great organist, and a great composer. He made Grinnell musical, and any future history of the college and the town will number him among the real founders of Grinnell.”

Here is some information from the Rachmaninov concert hall (in Russian).

Remembering Steven Stucky

The musical world suffered a great loss this week in the death of Steven Stucky.  As musicians across the country mourned his passing, my thoughts went back a decade or so to 2005 when we had the privilege of working with him in Grinnell.  In the spring of that year, The Grinnell Singers commissioned three new choral works from Stucky, who at that time was the Composer-in Residence with the LA Philharmonic.  The commission was offered by a consortium of three choirs: the Grinnell Singers, the Kansas City Chorale, and Seattle Pro Musica, with support from a Meet The Composer grant.  I pulled the consortium together and wrote the grant proposal.   Our ensemble was the odd one out -- a good college choir displaying pluck perhaps a little beyond what our talent would warrant, grouped together implausibly with two of the country’s finest professional choirs.  Imagine our surprise when we found that just about a month after we had arranged for the commission, Stucky won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for his Second Concerto for Orchestra.

Stucky was gracious toward me as we discussed the details of the commission, and he was interested to get to know The Grinnell Singers as much as possible so that he could compose a work that would work well for all three ensembles.  In our discussions, I had expressed my admiration for Stucky’s “Whispers,” which had been recorded by Chanticleer.  I had performed “Whispers” with the Grinnell Singers, and though it was, to tell the truth, just on the edge of our capabilities, in the end it was a richly satisfying piece to sing, with its deft blending of Byrd’s familiar “Ave Verum Corpus” and an ethereal setting of Walt Whitman’s poem “Whispers of Heavenly Death.” Since “Whispers,” a double choir piece, had worked for us, we agreed that the motets would be for double choir.   When I received the scores toward the end of summer, I should admit that I had a “what have I gotten myself into?” moment.  “Whispers” calls for soloists on one of the two choirs, but the pieces Stucky sent were true double choir pieces, with both choirs meant to be of equal strength.  We were going to need a lot of depth and strong singers throughout the choir.  Despite the high anxiety, in the end, I was enormously proud of how we did with his pieces, and I’m glad to have played a small part in bringing some fine music into the world.

 Stucky came out to Iowa meet with the choir and to give a workshop for student composers.  When news came of his passing this week, I received an email from Brian Cavanagh-Strong one of the students in the choir at the time who is now a composer, who expressed to me how inspired he was by that visit, by Stucky’s generosity in his composition lessons, and by having the opportunity to sing in the premiere of a significant work.  During our spring tour in 2006, we performed two of the pieces, “O vos omnes” and “O sacrum convivium” in Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey.  In thinking back about this commission, I was eager to know how the pieces have fared, and whether or not they have entered the repertoire.  Of the three pieces, the first “O admirabile commercium” is probably the most difficult, and as I did a quick search for recordings this morning, it appears that choirs have taken it on less often than the other two.  The rich eight-part writing in the first work is extremely subtle and delicate. To hear a particularly fine recording of this piece, listen to The Trinity College Choir’s CD, Beyond All Mortal Dreams  which includes an exquisite performance of all three motets.  ACDA members will remember  The Brigham Young University Choir’s spirited performance of the second piece, “O Sacrum Convivium” at the 2014 National ACDA convention (purchase recording on Amazon).  There’s a also fine recording of “O Vos Omnes” posted on YouTube by the Easter Michigan University Choir.  When I heard of Stucky’s passing, I went back to listen to the recording of our 2006 performance of the work.  If you’re interested to know how we did, here are concert recordings from our premiere of the three movements: “O admirabile commercium,” “O sacrum convivium ” and “O vos omnes.”  Thinking back on the experience, I’m glad that we took the risk and commissioned these works from this distinguished composer who had a wonderful understanding of how to write for choir, but who also did not pull his punches in terms of creating challenges for the performers.

One Way of Looking at a Blackbird's Shadow

Here's a video I took of shadows on the wall in my studio in an idle moment  -- paired with a piano improvisation.

Musical Journal Entries

This summer I'm meeting with novelist Dean Bakopoulos and artist Lee Running to plan our collaborative course to be taught in the spring.  We're putting composers, writers, and artists together to do creative projects.  The course will culminate in the visit of the innovative,  Pulitzer Prize-winning ensemble, "Roomful of Teeth," who will be presenting a concert consisting exclusively of works written by participants in the collaborative course.

As preparation for our course, we've been engaging in collaborative projects ourselves this summer.  Here are a few works-in-progress.  I wrote these short piano pieces to some verses that Dean Bakopoulos wrote.  This is just a sort of demo/progress report, not ready for prime time.  It's meant to give an idea of the collaborative creative process that we're pursuing.  I recorded them at home just a few minutes after I wrote them.

Listen to "Insomniac" John Rommereim, piano

New lovers: One insomniac at a kitchen sink;

staring out at the shadows and streetlamps.

Upstairs, the one sleeping knows nothing of it.

Oh she sleeps and she sleeps and she sleeps.
                Dean Bakopoulos

Listen to "Heavy Crows on Soundcloud (John Rommereim, piano)

All still, then not still, the dusk shimmers

a million exhausted leaves, shaking with heavy crows.

After midnight one bird awakened,

outside, he tweets: I believe I believe I believe.

                       Dean Bakopoulos

Listen to "mouth Harp" John Rommereim, piano

Here's another piece from this set of miniatures. In this piece, I was trying to get the piano to produce different vowel sounds.  I use my fingernail on the string to create an effect that is something like a jaw harp. If you listen carefully, I hope that you can sometimes hear these diferent sounds in the bass repeated notes (sort of "ee-aw-ee-aw").  You could also think of it as sort of overtone singing for the piano. I recorded this one at home like the others, just a few minutes after making it up.

Here's a piece to go with this poem by Dean Bakopoulos:

You never miss the things you think you’ll miss

you never need the things you think you’ll need

what you miss is the quiet years spent dreaming,

all the dreams, all the dreams, all the dreams.

Listen to The Things You Think You'll Miss on Soundcloud

 Here's another one to go with this poem:

One fragment dances down the hallway in silence,

another fragment lodges in your inner ear.

Here’s a trumpet, of salvation, and it’s blowing,

all the years, all the years, all the years.

Listen to All The Years on Soundcloud

You can play the set of pieces on Soundloud (click on "Collaborative Piano Miniatures").