American Guild of Organists National Convention
Chicago, Illinois • July 2006
". . . I offer this concise opinion of convention events: Peter Gomes, Janette Fishell, Stefan Engels, Rollo Dilworth, the Bach Week Festival Orchestra, St. Clement Choir and Sophie-Véronique Chauchefer-Choplin — fabulous. . . .
"The St. Clement Choir (of Chicago) sang at First United Methodist Church, Evanston. I enjoyed this choir the most, if only for their diversified, impressive and still useful repertoire. It was a refreshing change from the Cathedral Singers' all-Latin program the night before. Randall Swanson, conductor, was energetic, clearly understood, connected and at all times sensitive to the music and text. The choir has 32 singers, eight of whom were sopranos who sang in a warm straight tone; the repertoire alternated between a cappella and accompanied works. Marie Rubis Bauer provided superb accompaniment — she followed every nuance given by Swanson. This was no small task as she had to see around that massive console. The choir displayed their artistic mettle in Colin Mawby's Ave verum corpus. The contrasting, lush and expressive portions of the work were handled most ably by the choir, with muscle for the fortissimo sections and sensitivity and grace in the pianissimo sections."
~ Edward Maki-Schramm,
in The Diapason • December 2006 • pp23-24
"On Wednesday morning, the choir of St. Clement Church performed at the First United Methodist Church in Evanston. This talented choir, under the direction of Randall Swanson, performed Renaissance and contemporary motets drawn from their working repertoire and mostly covering the church feasts of the last few months. The choir consists mostly of volunteer singers drawn from St. Clement's parish, but they exhibit a level of discipline and control rarely found in an amateur group. In selections of Gregorian chant and motets by Marenzio and Peter Philips they employed the now-obligatory straight tone expected by most choir trainers. There was a lovely sense of ebbing and flowing of the vocal lines in these pieces, even if tempos were a little brisk. The church's rather dry acoustics revealed a clean, blended sound. One suspects that these tempos would be less successful in their home church, a neo-Byzantine masterpiece of a sanctuary with opulent acoustics.
"Barrie Cabena's The Day of Pentecost was the winner of the AGO/ECS Publishing Award in Choral Composition. This colorful piece employed alternating unison and four-part textures with an active organ accompaniment. The choir demonstrated how lovely and supple a unison line can be when properly sung. The second half of the program contained works of recent composers. Leo Nestor's Were You There? demonstrated how a simple spiritual can be reharmonized into submission. Colin Mawby's Ave Verum Corpus, a modern classic, again suffered from a hurried tempo. Matthew Kelly's The Lamb, for two solo sopranos and harp, was perhaps the most moving moment of the concert. The choir brought a uniform approach to their entire repertoire, yet with their youthful sound, clean performance, and fine blend still stand as a model of what a fine parish choir can achieve."
~ David Macfarlane
in The American Organist • October 2006 • p72