Document text
Chorale plays the Big Apple MT file photo Director Lynn Sjolund leads his Rogue Valley Chorale to New York this week to appear at Carnegie Hall on Sunday. Rogue Valley ensemble will sing in Carnegie Hall on Sunday By BILL VARBLE With the Rogue Valley Chorale set to perform Sunday at Carnegie Hall in New York City, five dozen members, a few spouses and assorted hangers-on are heading today for the Big Apple for the first time. "And probably the last," chorale founder and director Lynn Sjolund jokes. "It's a spendy kind of thing," he explains. The Medford-based chorale is scheduled to join some 200 other singers Sunday afternoon in a vocal concert called "Pomp and Pageantry." The show focuses on music that has been performed at British coronations. Sjolund says he met Peter Tiboris, whose Mid-America Productions is presenting the show, years ago when he was teaching in New Orleans. "It's been a possibility for years," Sjolund says. "But we were never invited before now. We're so far from New York City." The chorale performed in Hungary in 1994, Scandinavia in 1997 and Italy, including Alba, Medford's sister city, in 1998. Sunday's program includes music by Rachmaninoff, Vaughan Williams and others. A preview took place at the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in Medford earlier this month. The chorale's performance also will include some songs under the direction of guest conductor/composer John Rutter, of England, including Rutter's own composition, "Te Deum." "If you have a choral collection of CDs, you have something of Rutter's," Sjolund says. The London-born Rutter, a prolific composer, was recently awarded an honorary doctorate by the archbishop of Canterbury. He often tours the United States with his vocal group, the Cambridge Singers. Joining Rutter and the singers this time around will be the American Symphony Orchestra and solo vocalists from the New York City Opera. Sjolund says many chorale members have never been in New York City, let alone Carnegie Hall. Many plan to see the New York City Opera's production of "Porgy and Bess" while they're in town. Sjolund and his wife have tickets to the new production of "Kiss Me Kate," "The Barber of Seville" at the Met and "The Lion King." Although scalpers have demanded more than $300 for "Lion King" seats, Sjolund says he didn't have to resort to that. "I don't think we're even sitting together," he adds. When Carnegie Hall debuted in 1891, the great composer Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky conducted several of his works. Steel baron Andrew Carnegie had put up most of the money. The hall was slated for the wrecking ball in 1960s, but violinist Isaac Stern led a drive that saved it. It was renovated in 1986 after a drive raised $60 million. More recently the notoriously cramped backstage area was expanded. Carnegie Hall recently had a part in the movie "Music of the Heart," with Meryl Streep. Does Sjolund expect a few jitters from chorale members as they take a stage trod by Caruso, Mahler, Bernstein, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald? "Maybe," he says. "But we're doing a prelude concert earlier Sunday (also at Carnegie), and we get to rehearse a little ahead of time. That should take care of that." Today's Edition : News | Sports | Business | Weather | Tempo | Classifieds Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA