Two high school choirs will have the chance to work with a professional composer.
Chicago Master Singers recently added another concert to their series titled NextGen, honoring future composers and singers. This year’s edition of NextGen features composer Elaine Hagenberg at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23 at Glenview Community Church in Glenview. The program will be conducted by Chicago Master Singers music director, John C. Hughes.
The choir will perform a program exclusively of Hagenberg’s works, along with choirs from Fremd High School in Palatine and Lake Zurich High School. A pre-concert conversation is at 6:45 p.m. featuring Hagenberg and Hughes.
“The aim of NextGen is to support the next generation of singers and composers … like Elaine Hagenberg,” Hughes said.
The second layer to that is inspiring high school students to become the next generation of Chicago Master Singers members, he said.
“Something that you can do your entire life is singing at a high level.”
The experience has been very successful so far, he said. The performers and the teenagers alike have loved the music and the opportunity.
“Everyone is just excited to do something new,” he said. “I think it’s really important for organizations to involve and innovate and this is a good example of it for us.”
Between the Chicago Master Singers, which is based in the northern Chicago suburbs, and the two high schools, there will be 160 singers onstage, he said, ranging in age from teenagers to octogenarians.
“We’re showing them that singing is a lifelong activity,” he said. “The other thing that this embodies … an extraordinary musical experience. To sing a composer’s music and have her there in the audience is a unique experience. Elaine Hagenberg’s music is so inspiring and uplifting. It’s very soaring and kind of feels cinematic.
“I’ve worked with her before and I know that her personality type is one that will connect well with this range of ages,” he said. “Not every composer has the skills to work with high school choirs and a high-level community choir and she does.”
Hagenberg lives in Iowa and is one of the most-performed composers of choral music in the country, he said.
“Her music is performed all around the world,” he added. “It was important to me that we pick a composer for this project whose music is inspiring and singable. It’s melodic and very well-constructed and gives us a sense of inspiration and hope and possibility that we’re looking for in this project.”
He wants the teens he works with to understand they can go into other professions and still continue to sing.
“You don’t have to go into music professionally to sing at a really high level,” he said. “The whole point is to support the next generation of composers and singers. We’re featuring Elaine Hagenberg’s music as a basis of the entire program.
“She’s going to be the next generation of composers in the way that her music will be performed long after all of us have died and gone away. I think it’s a really exciting commitment and investment in choral music.”
The first piece on the program is one of Hagenberg’s first published pieces, composed in 2010 and titled “I Will Be a Child of Peace.” Following that will be one of her newest pieces, titled “Illuminare.”
“It’s her new major work. It’s about 25 minutes long and with chorus and orchestra,” he said. “That’s kind of neat to contrast one of first pieces and one of her most recent pieces.”
Joining Chicago Master Singers on “Illuminare” will be the Metropolis Symphony Orchestra.
At the end, all the choirs will combine and sing Hagenberg’s “The Music of Stillness.”
“It will be a great way to conclude the concert,” he said. “I think audiences will like this for a couple reasons. First of all, it’s something new and different. I think it’s really important to show that classical music and arts organizations aren’t curators of the past only. Yes, we do Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and Brahms, but we also shepherds of the furthering of music.
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“The second thing is, this is a great opportunity to meet one of the premier composers working in the United States today,” he said. “The third thing is, one of our core values or visions is providing extraordinary musical experiences that lift the human spirit and this concert will do that. People will walk away inspired.”
NextGen: Elaine Hagenberg
When: 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23
Where: Glenview Community Church, 1000 Elm St., Glenview
Tickets: $30-$50
Information: 847-604-1067; chicagomastersingers.org
Annie Alleman is a freelance reporter for the News-Sun.