South Florida Classical Review

Arianne Abela conducted Seraphic Fire Friday night in Coral Gables.

Air and water and the emotions those elements evoke were the thematic basis of Seraphic Fire’s candlelight program on Friday night at St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Coral Gables. Arianne Abela, director of the choral program at Amherst College and artistic director of the Kaleidoscope Vocal Ensemble, was the evening’s excellent guest conductor. Her selection groups spanned the centuries and varied musical idioms.

The spare vocal lines of “O Frondens virgo” by Benedictine abyss Hildegard von Bingen was rendered with serene purity. “Hegyi Éjszakák” by Zoltan Kodály represents the Hungarian composer and folklorist at his most harmonically adventurous and innovative. Don MacDonald’s finely crafted portrait of “Winter Sun” resounds like the sun gloriously rising on a frigid day.

It was clear in the performances of the first three selections that Abela was drawing her own distinct sound from the twelve singers. The group sounded larger in sonority, vigorous in attack and more deftly balanced than usual. “Canticum calamitatis Maritimae” by Jaakko Mäntyjärvy tells the story of a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea in which eight hundred people perished. The score is a cross between folk populist song and gnarly contemporary choral fare, powerfully evoking the tragedy. Male soprano Elijah McCormack effectively expressed the grief in a prayer for mercy while Gene Stenger’s fine tenor shone impressively in declamation of the narrative.

In a huge change of pace, a brisk rendition of Maurice Draughen’s “Wade in the Water” and the shout-out “Red Sky” by Kristin Kuster provided a wakeup call for the tired or weary.  Giovanni Pierluigi Palestrina’s “Super flumina babylonis” portrays the Hebrew’s loss of their world like a flowing river filled with the waters of grief. The choir’s timbral beauty and directness of utterance were exceptional. Tenor Haitham Haidar displayed a huge range mixed with intimacy of an indigenous pop singer in the Middle Eastern inflected “Wahdon” by Ziad Rahbani.

Monteverdi’s “Ecco marmorar l’onde” sings of the breeze and the choir’s vibrant iteration felt like a fresh musical wind. Daniel Knaggs’ setting of poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s “Sunset” was almost like an incantation. Knaggs’ writing in the highest range was impressively scaled.

Turning to the pop music sphere, “Little April Shower” by Frank Churchill proved a rouser, some of the singers pounding a percussive backdrop. “I Am a Cloud” from The Rivers are Our Brothers by Majel Connery further illustrated the group’s versatility.

The soothing lyricism of Eric Whitacre’s “Winter Night” brought the concert to a close with well-calibrated extremes of dynamics nicely complementing the chorus’ lovely rendition. Abela is a conductor one wants to hear again.

Seraphic Fire repeats the program 7:30 p.m, Saturday at All Saints Episcopal Church in Fort Lauderdale and 4 p.m. Sunday at St. Gregory”s Episcopal Church in Boca Raton.   seraphicfire.org

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