Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 16, 1994 TAG: 9412160024
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: SETH WILLIAMSON CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Long
When the Blacksburg Master Chorale trolls the ancient yuletide carols tonight at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, one of the New River Valley's best-kept musical secrets will be wielding the baton.
It's not that James Bryant has hidden his artistic light under a bushel for nearly two decades -but he hasn't exactly gone out of his way to grab headlines, either.
"Self-effacing is the word for Jim," said the Master Chorale's founder and regular conductor Craig Fields, who is taking this year off to work on an opera.
"He's a consummate musican, a wonderful collaborator and marvelous accompanist, one of those golden assets that you need to make something happen musically. He's not in it for the ego benefits. He's in it for the music," Fields said.
Bryant may be the best-qualified musician in these parts with a nonmusical day job. Despite undergraduate and graduate degrees in church music and choral conducting from Westminster Choir College, for 16 years he has crunched data with computers at the Virginia Tech campus bookstore. Perhaps even more surprising, he picked up all his computer know-how "pretty much on my own," Bryant said.
The 43-year-old Huntington, W.Va., native has earned a reputation among area musicians as somebody who quietly and competently gets the job done. Those who know him only as a computer expert at Virginia Tech are surprised to discover that he more than holds his own when performing with local professionals.
For six months Bryant has been organist at Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. For the 15 years prior to that he was organist at Blacksburg Baptist Church. He also finds time regularly to accompany Tech music majors in student recitals.
Bryant is also assistant conductor with Opera Roanoke and for three years has been responsible for rehearsing soloists with piano prior to full orchestra rehearsals. Again because of Fields' sabbatical, Bryant stepped in as the company's principal music director and conductor for Opera Roanoke's recent production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors." He also conducted the Master Chorale in its October concert, for which he prepared major works by Haydn, Handel and Telemann.
Concertgoers at this year's annual Master Chorale Christmas concert, titled "Sing We Joyous All Together," will notice improvements, Bryant said.
"We've tried to react to criticism that we've gotten in the past in regard to length of the programs, plus trying to incorporate good arrangements of primarily traditional tunes," said
Bryant, who noted that some Master Chorale concerts of Christmases past had perhaps required a little too much endurance from listeners.
For this year's Christmas performance, Bryant has selected two arrangements by the American choral-music legend Robert Shaw, for whom he played both organ and piano in performances in the '60s.
The two long medleys are from a suite of arrangements titled "The Many Moods of Christmas," which has attained semiclassic status among American choral singers. The difficult arrangements are big sellers on compact discs featuring both Shaw's original '60s recording and a more recent all-digital rendering on Telarc.
"I think they're good, but some people in the Chorale have pointed out that the voice-leading is problematic, with big jumps like an octave and a step and very high alto parts," Bryant said.
Also scheduled is the chorale "The Blessed Son of God," an a capella section from "Hodie," a Christmas cantata by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. "Hodie" is the most substantial - and the most popular - large-scale classical Christmas work composed after World War II.
Other pieces will include the choruses "And the Glory of the Lord" and "O Thou that Tellest Good Tidings to Zion" from "Messiah" by George Frederick Handel, the "Star Carol" of John Rutter, a Tyrolean carol called "The Shadows are Falling" by Hermann Schroeder, "Shepherds, Shake Off Your Drowsy Sleep" by Robert Scholz, and - for women's voices alone - Max Reger's "The Virgin's Slumber Song."
Bryant also plans a reprise of what has become a Master Chorale tradition, when the audience will be invited to sing along with carols in the first half of the concert, including "O Come, All Ye Faithful," "Still, Still, Still," "Joy to the World," and "On This Day Earth Shall Ring." The sing-along carols will be interspersed with pieces for Chorale alone.
The Master Chorale's Christmas concert will be held tonight at 8 p.m. at the Blacksburg Presbyterian Church. Admission is $8 for adults and $4 for students and senior citizens. Tickets are available at the door, from Chorale members, and various music stores. For more information, contact 633-0892 or 552-8071.
by CNB