Schola Version 2.0 ???

In the past few days, while the touring singers of Schola Cantorum On Hudson have been hard at work delivering peak performances and making important cultural connections with European audiences, there has been some good media attention focused on the tour activities (and this blog!). In our modern age of Internet news and blogging sites, even the denizens of the vocal music world utilize the web as a tool to highlight and revere the art form. We are very excited to note that two such places have been keeping an eye on the American Ambassadors tour:

This blog has been featured online at ChoralNet, the Internet center for choral music. We'd particularly like to thank Philip L. Copeland, Michael Ransom, group moderators, and the management team of ChoralNet for their support and kind words. You can view the post under the ChoralBlog section of their homepage or by clicking here.

Concurrently, an article about Schola and the behind-the-scenes process leading up to the European premiere of the Svane Mass has just been published online by the Vocal Area Network, New York's home for vocal ensemble music. Our gratitude goes to Steve Friedman, who has been single-handedly running VAN since 1995.

The article is a discussion about the challenge that ensembles face when programming new music and the efforts required of contemporary composers in order to get their music performed. It goes on to use Schola's own story to illustrate how ensembles can work with composers for the betterment of both, and how new technologies can aid the process. You can read the article by visiting the VAN homepage, or jump directly to it by clicking here.

ChoralNet and VAN are two of the most important web-based resources that are out there for vocal music lovers, and we highly recommend that you check them out. You will be surprised by some of the things you encounter.

On a side note, those of us who are stateside would like to tell the singers how tremendously proud we are. I've heard remarks from so many well-wishers (friends, family, audience members, and even folks from around the world who were unaware of the group until now) who are following this blog anxiously and excitedly. The evocative descriptions of your daily happenings, musical and otherwise, have made the great distance between us ever so much shorter. And surely you are bridging other kinds of distances with the important work you are doing in Europe. We look forward to reading more.

Being that we envision this blog as a broader forum about the role of the arts in society, and since Schola is right now gearing up for its major performance of the Svane Mass this Sunday in Salzburg, I thought I would close by sharing these quotes as "food for thought":

"People usually complain that music is so ambiguous, that it leaves them in such doubt as to what they are supposed think, whereas words can be understood by everyone. But to me it seems exactly the opposite." -Felix Mendelssohn

"Are we not formed, as notes of music are, / For one another, though dissimilar?"-Percy Bysshe Shelley

"Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket." -Henri Rabaud

Photo credit: Darren Hester, Creative Commons license