Arts This Week: A Little May Music with the Virginia Consort
By Ben Larsen
Ben Larsen:
The Virginia Consort is closing out their season by hosting a concert at St Paul’s Memorial Church. For Arts This Week, we spoke with music director Deke Polifka.
Deke Polifka:
My name is Deke Polifka, and I’m the music director for the Virginia Consort. The consort offers concerts all year, but our last one for this season is coming up next Saturday May 10, at St Paul’s Memorial Church at 7:30pm and it’s a really exciting sort of eclectic program done by our chamber ensemble, which is sort of the core group of the Virginia consort, and also includes our youth chorale and even a couple of members of our children’s chorus as well for our big finale piece at the end. There will be pieces, two pieces with choir and organ. St Paul’s is lucky to have a beautifully and newly restored Skinner pipe organ, so that will be featured on the opening and closing pieces. So we have James McMillan Scottish composer, his piece called a New Song with organ to open the concert. It’s a beautiful setting of Psalm 96 and then the concert closes with Dan Forrest’s, beautiful piece from his Jubilate Deo that features all the choirs together with organ. And then in the middle there’s both a capella works, and also featured is PDQ Bach, Liebeslieder Polkas, so we’ll do five of those. And those are a real trip, as is a lot of his music. And those actually are based on or satire of Brahms, Liebeslieder Waltzes. And they use, instead of forehand piano, they use five and six hand piano, which is typical of PDQ Bach, to do something zany like that, and also are very humorous and light and fun for the audience. So usually, our season begins with Christmas concerts in December. Those are always very popular, and we do those in early December to sort of kick off the season. And then we, just about a month and a half ago, or a little more, did our March masterworks concert, which is in the middle of our season and usually features the larger Festival Chorus, which is 100 plus singers with full orchestra at old Cabell Hall at UVA.
Ben Larsen:
So for those who are interested, how can people find out more and potentially even get involved?
Deke Polifka:
Sure we do have a good website, which I believe is just virginiaconsort.org, and there are choruses for every age. So we have first step and Prelude choirs for children, and that goes up to eighth grade, and then we have our youth chorale for high school students who are singers and interested in doing even more singing outside of their school choruses and so forth. And then for adults, we have the core group, as I mentioned before, the chamber ensemble of the consort, which is about 42 singers. And then the larger festival chorus sings January through March, and that’s over 100 singers. So we do auditions in August and early September for each season, and we’re looking forward to another great season next year as well.
Ben Larsen:
What is it that you’d like people to know about the consort?
Deke Polifka:
Mainly that it’s unique in town, and being a group of about 40 singers, so not huge, but not small either. And that is a great size for being able to offer sort of the gamut of music for choir, and so you’ll hear that definitely on May 10, with works for a cappella choir or unaccompanied choir, beautiful, professional sounding group with tight harmonies and all of that. And the acoustics of St Paul’s are wonderful. But also some larger pieces with organ and with the PDQ Bach, of course, which is great fun for the audience.
Ben Larsen:
The Little May Music concert is Saturday May 10, at 7:30pm more information about the consort and its initiatives can be found on virginiaconsort.org. Arts This Week is supported by the UVA Arts Council and Piedmont Virginia Community College. PVCC Arts presents a rich array of dance music theater and visual arts programming. Learn more at pvcc.edu
