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Call it a baptism by fire. The first time Duain Wolfe ever sang with an orchestra, as a 17-year-old tenor chorister, he sang Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.
Yes, that concert was 59 years ago now — a figure Wolfe relays with a self-deprecating grimace. Yes, they were college ensembles at Wolfe’s alma mater, Southeastern Louisiana University. But the combined might of the chorus and orchestra lodged in his eardrums, and his heart.
“You know, I was a college kid. I didn’t have those opportunities. And all of a sudden, there was onstage a big chorus, a big orchestra, just surrounded by this massive sound,” Wolfe says. “Jeepers, can you imagine?”
So, when Wolfe announced his retirement as director of the Chicago Symphony Chorus last spring, he lost no sleep deciding his final program: He’d go out with the Ninth (set to Friedrich Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy”), just as he began his love affair with choral-orchestral repertoire. The orchestra and chorus’ performances of the symphony this weekend mark Wolfe’s final time preparing the chorus and the formal culmination of his 28-year tenure. He will be awarded the Theodore Thomas Medallion, a CSO-conferred honor usually reserved for members of the orchestra, during Sunday’s concert.
“Being old, as I’ve made quite clear, I’ve accumulated quite a number of awards over the years — Grammys and Governors Awards and all sorts of wonderful things. But they’re not out, because I don’t put out anything,” Wolfe says. “This … this is going to hang somewhere where people can see it.”
Wolfe is only the second chorus director in the Chicago Symphony Chorus’ history, succeeding founding director Margaret Hillis in 1994. Over the three ensuing decades, Wolfe prepared the chorus for some 150 performances and 19 albums, three of which won Grammys.
Where many think of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s core sound as, in some ways, distinct from its music director or even its musicians, under Wolfe’s leadership, the Chicago Symphony Chorus became an expert shape-shifter. Wolfe’s tenure overlapped with that of music directors Daniel Barenboim and Riccardo Muti, and he collaborated frequently with former CSO music director Sir Georg Solti, as well as interim conductors Bernard Haitink and Pierre Boulez. He would prepare the chorus differently depending on which conductor was leading the work, studying their discographies to mesh with their sensibilities even before the first rehearsal.
“Once in a great while, I get to have a conversation with (the conductor) before we start rehearsing, but that’s very, very rare. So, I consider part of my homework when I’m preparing a piece to learn as much as I can about the conductor,” Wolfe says.
“Sometimes, you listen to conductors recording and realize they like really crisp articulations. Or, when they conduct forte, it’s kind of a muted forte, not a flamboyant forte. That is all incredibly valuable information,” Wolfe says.
“As a person who prepares a chorus then passes it off the majority of the time, I think he’s wanting to make sure the chorus is in the best possible position to meet the expectations and succeed,” says Carolyn Stoner, former chorus personnel manager. “He’s exacting. He has high expectations of who he works with. But I don’t hold it against him, because Maestro Muti or Bernard Haitink had high expectations, too. He’s a perfectionist with a purpose. It’s not just for the sake of it.”
If Wolfe’s departure seems sudden, it is. The CSO’s communications team makes little to no attempt to hide that fact, both in on-the-record asides and in its press notice, burying the lede of Wolfe’s expedited exit. According to a source in the chorus, Wolfe first addressed his imminent departure with the ensemble as recently as Feb. 14.
But Wolfe’s retirement fete certainly wasn’t helped by the pandemic and the already jerky rollout of the CSO’s 2021-22 season: The institution announced only its fall programming in July, then the remainder of the season in October. Beethoven’s Ninth was originally scheduled as the 2019-20 season closer, part of celebrations for Beethoven’s 250th year; in the 2021-22 season, it was rescheduled for February, with Muti leading concert performances of Verdi’s “Un ballo in maschera” to close the season instead.
News releases from October provided by the CSO’s communications team listed Wolfe as preparing the choir through the end of the season. Wolfe, for his part, says he’d known the 2021-22 season programming back when the CSO initially announced his retirement in May and had intended to close with Beethoven’s Ninth back then, citing his long tenure and immunocompromised health status as additional factors for his imminent departure. Wolfe has heart disease, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis.
“It’s a tradition for players in the orchestra to choose a retirement concert with repertoire that’s particularly close to them. If you’re an oboe player, you retire on the date of your favorite oboe solo,” Wolfe says. “This piece is particularly close to me. And for goodness’ sake, it’s about joy.”
And as for the future? He’ll keep his home in Chicago and see out the last two years of his contract at the Colorado Symphony Chorus, which he founded in 1984, as well as continue conducting engagements at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Ontario. Wolfe says he will hew to tradition and remain uninvolved with the search process for his successor, unless asked.
What’s harder for him is imagining his life without the chorus. When asked how the chorus has changed during his tenure, after some thought, Wolfe seized upon one observation: continuity. Singers have stayed in the chorus for decades. He knows them; they know him. They’ve both been constants to the other. Until now.
“I feel like a …” Wolfe stops himself. “Well, I’m not a deserter because I’ve done everything right. But I will really miss these incredible singers. I really will.”
Performances at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave: 1:30 p.m. Friday, 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday. For ticketing and more information, visit cso.org
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.Hannah Edgar is a freelance writer.
The Rubin Institute for Music Criticism helps fund our classical music coverage. The baiduhai maintains complete editorial control over assignments and content.