Young singers' performance belies their ages

By Peter Bergquist for The Register-Guard.

The Pacific International Children's Choir Festival, now in its sixth year, is sponsored by the Eugene-based Oregon Festival Choirs, directed by Peter Robb.

Each year at this time it brings children's choirs from across the country together in Eugene to take part in workshops and performances.

This year the visiting choirs came from up and down the West Coast (Spokane, Salem, Oakland and San Diego) and from Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Each group sang individually at one of three concerts, and many of them also sang at local church services last Sunday.

Monday night, in a final gala concert at the Hult Center, all of the choirs joined together, making a total of some 300 treble voices, undoubtedly one of the largest choruses ever to sing in Silva Hall. For much of the program they were ably accompanied by the Oregon Mozart Players.

The concert had for its theme "Dreams of Peace" The major work on the program was the West Coast premiere of "I Dream of Peace" by Robert Jager, based on writings by children who witnessed the recent civil wars in the former Yugoslavia. The children's abhor- rence of war and its consequences and their longing for peace are deeply moving, and Jager's setting only heightens these feelings.

It's an intense piece of music, and the choir and orchestra gave a stunning performance under the direction of guest conductor Sandra Snow. The careful precision achieved by such a large group was admirable.

A few times, individual singers stepped forward from the choir to deliver nicely sung solo passages. Perhaps the most touching section was one in which individuals spoke the text while the chorus sang wordlessly, after which the individuals struck poses of grief and desolation.

The shorter pieces on the program were equally well done. Snow led the opener, Stephen Paulus's "Sing Creation's Music On," on a text by English poet John Clare. Peter Robb then conducted a duet from a cantata by Johann Ludwig Bach, a piece until recently ascribed to his more famous cousin, Johann Sebastian.

After Jager's piece, Snow led the chorus in an up-tempo arrangement by Gwyneth Walker of the old hymn, "How Can I Keep From Singing," with an enthusiastic piano accompaniment by Signe Lusk. Robb concluded the program with a spirited rendition of the "Gloria" from Lee Kesselman's "Shona Mass," a setting of the traditional text in the Shona language of Zimbabwe.

The concert was a most impressive performance by highly skilled young musicians. Their appearance and stage presence were exemplary; even more remarkable was their singing the entire program from memory.

This was not easy music; it would challenge the most experienced adult choirs, few of whom would dare to sing it without music in front of them. One can only imagine the amount of time and energy that the individual choirs devoted to learning the music before they came to Eugene for this performance.

The Oregon Festival Choirs, the visiting groups and all those who work with them to make this festival possible deserve high praise. The results show so clearly the value of music to children and its importance as part of any school curriculum.

Peter Bergquist is a professor emeritus at the University of Oregon School of Music.