Nice work if you can sing it

Choral arts society has a crush on George Gershwin

Friday, March 27, 2009

Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by SARA K. TAYLOR Left, Chesapeake Choral Arts Society's director Michael K. Santana, left, and jazz pianist Mike Maher go over some arrangements before rehearsal. Above, sopranos AnnaBelle Lowe, left, Martha Tersero and Pat McConkey dress the part as flappers during a rehearsal for the upcoming concert honoring George Gershwin. E-Mail This Article | Print This Story Click here to enlarge this photo Larry Robinson will be singing selections from the 1935 Gershwin-penned opera, "Porgy and Bess." Click here to enlarge this photo Click here to enlarge this photo

The altar of Calvary United Methodist Church on a weekday evening is an unlikely place for the guy in charge to make the request, "Be sexy in church!"

Yet that's what Michael K. Santana, director of the Chesapeake Choral Arts Society, is asking of the group of singers — including his own mother, Pat McConkey — as they go over George Gershwin's "Clap Yo' Hands."

"Do it gospel-y," Santana instructed.

Later, when Katie Gochnour takes over the piano from guest jazz pianist Mike Maher for a medley with "I've Got Rhythm," Santana tells the choir, "Be involved, enjoy, listen. Now is not the time to search the audience for who showed up," he said. "Act like this is a cocktail party, talk to each other … without talking."

Lots of things seemed vaguely out of place during the Monday evening rehearsal for the weekend shows of "By George! That's Good Music! Music by George Gershwin."

When Larry Robinson finishes his part of the four-song set from the Gershwin opera, "Porgy and Bess,"(guest soloist soprano Angela Powell will perform the female roles from the opera) Santana mentions that the just-heard number, ends with the play's pimp character, Sportin' Life, giving Bess cocaine.

"We won't be doing that part," Santana said.

This comment prompted a female choir member to pipe up, "Now, Ms. Manners said if you choose to have illicit drugs at a party, you have to enough for everybody."

"Not on my salary," Santana joked, before calling for the women to prepare a launch into Gershwin for Girls — which includes some of the composer's most famous staples, many of which jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald made immortal.

While Gershwin tunes might appeal to an older crowd, the music is early 20th-century jazz — loose and improvised, sultry and ageless.

It's what appeals to featured soloist Jennifer Cooper of "Go-Diva!" fame, who was recruited by Santana to sing a 10-song set of rare Gershwin songs for the second half of the show.

"I'm doing the more obscure songs," Cooper said.

"They're really fun and interesting. There are kitschy lyrics and some are really bawdy and sassy."

Cooper — who tours with her "one-woman-and-her-pianist autobiographical cabaret, ‘Go-Diva! — of song, silence and the abuse of chocolate'" — is a classically trained opera singer who was making a living with her talent before being sidelined by health problems.

She took a teaching job at a small Virginia university and met L.B. Hamilton, who would eventually turn Cooper's story into "Go-Diva!"

Cooper, who has worked with Santana for years — he directed her Port Tobacco Players debut in the "Fantasticks" when she was 16 and is the pianist for her one-woman show — is hoping to ease her way back to arias, but for now is psyched to be singing jazz standards, which she performs around the area.

"‘Go-Diva!' covers different genres," she said. "But I've been singing jazz quite a bit. I think jazz is kind of coming back. It's a lively, exciting genre, a lot of improvisation, off the cuff."

The CCAS, formed in 1996, draws its members from Prince George's, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties.

Santana, who has been the director for six years, said that the society's leaders have to prepare for shows two years in advance for grant purposes.

The Gershwin program was a suggestion from CCAS fans.

While the chorus holds an annual pops concert, Santana has a plan for the group including tackling several genres of choral music — Middle Ages, Renaissance, baroque, the classical period, romantic and modern music from the 1900s to the present.

Gershwin covers the first half of the past century.

"He did some comic, silly songs," Santana said. "And he wrote a lot of bad songs early in his career."

The choir will touch on as many as it can.

Following the close of the Gershwin show, the choir will begin preparations for its next gig, singing the works of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Igor Stravinsky, backed by a full orchestra.

"I think it's wonderful that people in the community get together to make music," said Maher, a pianist from Linden, Va., who traveled 99 miles to Waldorf for rehearsel.

The choral society is always looking for new members. While the official auditions are usually held in January and September, interested performers can contact the society to set up an audition at any time, according to Carol Charnock, a CCAS representative and member.

"We are a hodgepodge," she said of the choir, which attracts members from churches, community theaters and those that just love to sing.

"We are always looking for new members," she added. "The bigger the choir, the more we can do."

staylor@somdnews.com

Once more, with feeling The Chesapeake Choral Arts Society, under the direction of Michael K. Santana, and featuring jazz pianist Mike Maher and soloist Jennifer Cooper, will perform "By George! That's Good Music! Music by George Gershwin" at 7:30 p.m. March 28 at Calvary United Methodist Church, 3235 Leonardtown Road, Waldorf. A matinee will be at 3 p.m. March 29 at La Plata United Methodist Church, 3 Port Tobacco Road. A reception will follow each concert. Tickets, available at the door, are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors. For more information or to audition for the choir, call 301-934-5447 or 301-642-0594 or go to www.chesapeakechoral.org.