Vocal Arts Ensemble Sings the Bard

   The Vocal Arts Ensemble is brushing up its Shakespeare.
There will be plenty of The Bard on its 25th anniversary concerts, beginning at 8 p.m. Friday at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Edgewood, Ky., with repeats at 8 p.m. Saturday in Corbett Auditorium at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music and 3 p.m. Sunday at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Montgomery.  Music director Earl Rivers will conduct.
   Featured work is "Wm’s Ghosts," a world premiere by CCM dean Douglas Lowry.
   "Wm" is William Shakespeare and Lowry has exhumed – musically speaking - some of the ghosts in his life.
   Making guest appearances are three area children’s choirs, the Northern Kentucky Children’s Ensemble (Friday), Cincinnati Children’s Choir (Saturday) and Cincinnati Boychoir (Sunday). Each has been allotted its own portion of the program and will join the VAE in the final number, "I Will Sing unto the Lord" by Canadian composer Imant Raminsh.
   Lowry’s nine-minute work is for a capella choir and solo violin, to be performed by the 24-voice VAE and violinist Liviu Drobata. Spooks include the ghost of Hamlet’s father in "Hamlet" and Prince Edward’s ghost in "Richard III." Shakespeare’s wife Anne Hathaway appears, as does the spectral poet himself.
   Each concert will have a Shakespearean first half. To be heard along with "Wm’s Ghosts" are "Three Shakespeare Songs" by Ralph Vaughan Williams (from "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night’s Dream"), "To Dream Again" and "O Brave New World" by Chicago composer Gary Fry (from "The Tempest") and the regional premiere of jazz pianist George Shearing’s "Songs and Sonnets." Shearing’s seven-part work comprises texts from "Songs to Sundry Notes of Music," "The Winter’s Tale," "As You Like It," "Love’s Labour’s Lost," "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "The Merry Wives of Windsor" and "Twelfth Night."
   The focus moves to Brahms on the second half, with selections from his "Liebeslieder" Waltzes and "Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine" by Eric Whitacre.
   The Brahms will be performed with four-hand piano accompaniment, as it was on the very first VAE concert in 1979, led by founder Elmer Thomas, retired head of choral studies at CCM (Thomas will attend Friday’s concert).
   Fully professional, the VAE produces a four-concert subscription series annually, plus educational and outreach programs. For five seasons, it was heard on National Public Radio’s weekly "The First Art" (heard on over 220 stations, until the series was discontinued for lack of funding). Chorus America, national service organization for choral groups, is negotiating a new series for satellite radio, said Rivers, a Chorus America board member and head of CCM’s division of ensembles and conducting. "We are producing choral programming for these satellite broadcasts."
   The VAE has produced two CDs, "An American Christmas" (2002) and "Christmas Holidays" (2004), both available at the VAE web site www.vaecincinnati.org.
   Visiting composers are integral part of the VAE’s mission, and it has twice received the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) Award for "Adventuresome Programming of Contemporary Music."
   Working with composers, said Rivers, has been the highlight of his VAE tenure.
   "We’ve had some wonderful folks here (Steven Paulus, Libby Larsen, Robert Moran, William Hawley etc.). In some cases they were premieres and that has always brought me the most satisfaction. When you’re creating something new, you have the opportunity to make last minute changes and I love being part of the creative process."
   The VAE collaborates frequently with other area arts organizations, notably the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, with which it has performed four out of the past five seasons. They will present Haydn’s "The Creation" April 3 and 5 at CCM’s Corbett Auditorium and Greaves Concert Hall at Northern Kentucky University, respectively.
   In October, the VAE partnered with Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati and Central State University Chorus (Wilberforce, Ohio) to present Donald McCullough’s "Let My People Go," at the newly opened Underground Railroad Freedom Center and the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington.
   VAE holiday concerts are among the area’s most treasured, presented at venues such as St. Boniface Catholic Church in Northside, the Athenaeum of Ohio in Mt. Washington and St. Peter in Chains Cathedral downtown.
   Leading the VAE "fulfills a passion of mine," said Rivers, a Post-Corbett Award-winner who also directs the excellent Knox Music Series at Knox Presbyterian Church in Hyde Park. "I feel very fortunate to have a group like this. It attracts the best singers in town and it just feels very good to give your time to something you feel so strongly about."
   Tickets for the VAE’s 25th anniversary concerts are $20, $10 for students, available at the door, www.vaecincinnati.org or call (513) 556-4183.

About the VAE.

•  Founded 1979 by Elmer Thomas, director of choral studies at CCM (emeritus)

•  Music director 1988-present, Earl Rivers, head of the division of ensembles and conducting at CCM

• 24 singers

•  Fully professional

•  Four subscription concerts a year

•  Rehearses at Knox Presbyterian Church, Hyde Park

• Auditions late spring and summer

•  2 CDs (Christmas music)

•  Funding: 30 percent from ticket sales, remainder, Fine Arts Fund, Ohio Arts Council, City of Cincinnati, foundations, corporate and individual sponsors

• 15-member community board
  

• Three part-time staff

•  web site www.vaecincinnati.org