Uplifted voices herald holiday season

By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
Published December 1, 2007

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ST. PETERSBURG - The holiday season seems to have arrived sooner than ever this year. For many at Friday's concert by the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay, the spirit of the season took hold for real after intermission, when the choristers onstage were joined by the University of South Florida Chamber Singers, positioned throughout Mahaffey Theater, in an elegant, touching rendition of The First Nowell.

The program, conducted by Richard Zielinski, included lots of old favorites, but there was also fresh music for the holidays, most notably the premiere of Cradle Song, a setting of Isaac Watts' text by Carol Barnett, composer in residence with the Dale Warland Singers in Minnesota from 1992 to 2001. The work, commissioned by the chorale to kick off a Christmas carol composition competition, has flowing, joyfully singable phrases that communicate the innocence and mystery of the Nativity in beautiful fashion, gently punctuated by passages of clarinet and piano.

The concert opened with a generous helping of Messiah excerpts, with the orchestra providing a reasonable facsimile of Baroque briskness. The soloists were the married pair of soprano Kyoung Cho and bass-baritone Won Cho, both on the USF voice faculty. She brought passionate color to He Shall Feed His Flock, while he and trumpeter Jay Coble teamed up smartly on The Trumpet Shall Sound.

The Master Chorale rattled the rafters in the appropriate places - the beginning of Worthy is the Lamb, say - but it also sang with restraint and lightness, no small feat for more than 150 voices.

A surefire crowd pleaser was A Musicological Journey Through the 12 Days of Christmas, Craig Courtney's witty arrangement that includes Gregorian chant with bird call for the partridge in a pear tree, Wagnerian Rhine maids milking and pipers piping to Tchaikovsky.

All that was missing from the evening was some holiday diversity. This was a pure Christmas program.

John Fleming can be reached at 727 893-8716 or fleming@sptimes.com.

If you go

Master Chorale

The Master Chorale repeats its program at 7:30 tonight at Ferguson Hall of Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. $18-$36. (813) 974-7726; www.masterchorale.com.