Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, May 5, 1990 TAG: 9005050020
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By JEFF DeBELL STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The concert will be at 8 p.m. in the Roanoke Civic Center auditori Shade um, with Victoria Bond conducting.
Soloists will be Ellen Shade and Craig Fields.
Fields is the founder and director of the chorale, which will be performing with the symphony for the first time and making its Roanoke debut.
He said its singers are a mix of "church-choir types" and people with degrees in voice or other credentials. About half the membership teaches at Virginia Tech, though the chorale has Fields no formal link with the school.
Its first concert was a holiday performance of Handel's "Messiah."
"We called it `Messiah Aid,' " said Fields.
Singers outnumbered the audience but $600 was raised for the Blacksburg Ministerial Association, which used the donation to aid the homeless. A second concert the following spring raised $2,000, Field said, "and we were off to the races."
The chorale now does an annual holiday benefit for the ministerial association, plus concerts each fall and spring. It has a budget of $5,000 per concert and is in the black, according to the director.
Monday, 90 singers will perform in the "German Requiem," which Fields said is "one of the most beautiful pieces of music Brahms ever wrote.
"It's in my top five. If I were on a desert island I'd probably want to take it with me."
The work derives its name from the fact that Brahms substituted a German liturgical text from the Lutheran Bible for one in Latin.
Fields said it differs from the usual requiem in that it is "a solace and consolation for the survivors rather than a eulogy for the dead. For lack of a better term, it's a living requiem."
Three sections of the requiem were performed in Vienna on Dec. 1, 1867, and were not well received. The following April 10, Brahms himself conducted a performance of six sections in Bremen and the reception was much warmer.
The seventh and final section was added later in 1868, and the "German Requiem" became Brahms' first major success.
Soprano Ellen Shade is a native New Yorker who began her professional career at the Juilliard American Opera Center. She is an operatic and concert singer who has appeared with major international companies and orchestras including La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony.
Fields, a baritone, received a masters degree in vocal performance from California Institute of the Arts in 1975. He taught at Lewis and Clark College in Oregon before undertaking an operatic career that spanned some 800 performances in Europe and the U.S.
Fields joined Virginia Tech in 1987 as assistant professor of music and conductor of the University Concert Choir.
With Monday's season-ending concert, a composition by Brahms will have been performed on all of the orchestra's 1989-90 subscription programs except the one on February 26, when guest pianist Eugene Istomin requested a substitution.
Inquiries about tickets to Monday's concert should be directed to the civic center box office at 981-1201.
by CNB