Vivat Schola

A Fond Reminiscence of Six Years at Yale

Simon Carrington

Not long after I had taken over the choral program at New England Conservatory in 2001, a letter arrived in the mail from someone named Martin Jean outlining a plan by the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale to create a choral conductor professorship and to endow a small chamber choir to specialize in music from before 1750.

Did I know anyone who might be suitable for the position?

I dutifully racked my brain for names and sent in a list, adding tentatively that this sounded like a dream ticket and I was tempted to apply myself.

Some time later a letter bearing the Yale return address came back to say that the committee had convened and there appeared to be some interest in my candidacy – though I was fairly certain that a used ensemble singer long past his prime was highly unlikely to sustain the interest of so august a search committee.

Contrary to these expectations, I found myself auditioning a year later in Hendrie Hall, rehearsing a Guerrero motet, a Bach cantata, and the Stravinsky Mass under the microscope of distinguished members of the Yale faculty. I had lunch at Mory’s with then-director Margot Fassler, who I discovered had been nurturing her idea of setting up this new branch of the ISM for many years. I had coffee with Marguerite Brooks at Naples (the café, not the city), a daunting interview as I had known and admired Maggie’s work for many years – we choral directors make it a business to keep an eye on each other! With suit and tie adjusted, I sat before Robert Blocker in the Dean’s office at the School of Music and learned of the beauties and benefits of Yale. Then there was dinner in the evening with the committee at the Lawn Club, Doris Cross gazing at me enquiringly, Bryan Spinks regarding me suspiciously over his glasses.

More time went by. Finally came a call from Margot, followed shortly by a visit to the President of NEC to inform him of developments, a trip to New Haven with my wife, Hilary, on a miserable January day to impress her with the sights (!), a very lively dinner with Margot and colleagues in Hot Tomato’s, and then breakfast with Tom Murray at Stony Creek Market where we talked more of vintage motor cars than music.

One of the many enjoyable things about working at a conservatory is the constant sound track of young musicians in every room practicing concertos, sonatas, and orchestral extracts. At the ISM I learned to love the normally peaceful surroundings of the glorious studio I shared with Maggie, with a magnolia tree outside my window, distant views of Marquand Chapel, the ISM’s wonderful administrative office staff just down the corridor – punctuated by the occasional burst from the loudest fire alarm I have ever endured in my life!

The move from Boston was made, a house bought in the Guilford woods, a bicycle secreted in the ISM basement for the trips downtown, a name chosen for the embryo choir, and work began. For some reason it had never occurred to me to ask about undergraduate voice majors. There weren’t any?! I was expected to build a choir with no voice majors?! I was used to the 300 singers at the University of Kansas (all singing for academic credit), or choir-as-a-requirement for all undergraduate voice students at NEC. “Don’t worry,” said Martin and Maggie, “you’ll find them.”

Sure enough, out of the woodwork a small group of talented singers began to emerge and we duly launched the Schola ship. Tenor William Hite was engaged to come over from time to time from UMass Amherst to coach Schola members and masterclasses were organized for them to sing for him and each other. That first year my ambitious plans included Bach cantatas, the Schütz Requiem, a compilation of Credos from five centuries to mark the 80th birthday of distinguished Yale professor emeritus Jaroslav Pelikan, a concert to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of Charpentier (long one of my favorite composers, a fortunate coincidence), a recital of motets by the Bach family and the visit by James MacMillan to conduct his masterpiece Seven Last Words from the Cross. The Charpentier and Bach concerts gave me an opportunity to work with the baroque violinist and inspired teacher, Robert Mealy, and any mention of Schola Cantorum’s achievements during my tenure needs to pay tribute to his immense contribution, from which I learned so much. The Macmillan concert gave me the chance to rehearse an ensemble of string players from the School of Music and then to watch the composer inspire our fledgling choir, and the Bach motets were accompanied at the continuo organ by the former chair of my search committee, Martin Jean! The year ended with the first of a series of fruitful collaborations with Richard Lalli, Robert Mealy, and Yale Collegium Musicum in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

I had long harbored the idea of being involved in the creation of a graduate program for singers whose ambitions were not necessarily to sing opera. In England there is a roster of excellent singers who come through the collegiate chapel choir system, do graduate work at one of the conservatories, and then make a comfortable living freelancing as oratorio soloists and members of ensembles large and small. I had floated the idea of such a program unsuccessfully at both my previous teaching institutions but the combination of the ISM and the YSM seemed the ideal context for it. A quartet of singers would be admitted each academic year into the two-year program, who would be leading members of Schola Cantorum and then step forth at any moment to sing arias as required, a long established tradition in Europe thanks to HIP, the Historically Informed Performance movement. To my great delight, this idea was picked up and endorsed by Margot Fassler and Robert Blocker together with Doris Cross, the director of the School of Music’s opera program, whose support was mission-critical.

That next year we had half our cohort with the initial quartet. Expert colleagues Judith Malafronte and Mark Risinger were engaged to teach the female and male members of the quartet respectively and with these four student singers on board Schola made a significant leap forward that second year. Space does not permit me to wax poetic on all the exciting repertoire and all the wonderful young singers and instrumentalists who performed it through these long years. . As a memory tickler to Prism readers, let me list just a few of the real high points:

• The establishment of the Chiaroscuro concerts, where each year we gathered wildly contrasting pieces from wildly differing periods and styles to great effect.

• Performing with eminent guest conductors: Sir David Willcocks conducting Britten,  Helmuth Rilling conducting Bach and returning to conduct Mendelssohn’s Elijah,  Paul Hiller conducting Estonian music, and Stephen Layton conducting Byrd and MacMillan,

• Performing together with guest ensembles: the Ensemble europeén William Byrd, Piffaro, and the memorable rendering of the 40-part Tallis motet with the chapel choir of Clare College.

• The honor of being invited to participate in two major and prestigious choral conferences in one year: the inaugural national conference of the NCCO (National Collegiate Choral Organization) in San Antonio;  and the American Choral Directors Association National Convention in Miami.

• Recordings: the Biber Vespers (released by the ISM); the Bertali Missa Resurrectionis and the St. John Passion (both released by Loft Recordings), and the recording of Magnificats by Mendelssohn and Bach that is forthcoming on the Naxos label.

• Tours: to England and then Hungary; to southwest France; and finally, to China and Korea with the Mass in B Minor.

• Among many vivid and fond memories one anecdote stands out: Stephen Layton had just arrived from Britain for a week of teaching and conducting, little suspecting that his resilience was to be tested to the limit. He got in late to JFK in a blizzard, and having no cellphone, gamely caught the last Connecticut Limo to brave the snow to New Haven. They dropped him off at the depot – which was by that time closed, leaving the hapless traveler shivering in the cold with no real notion of where he was. After hitching a lift from a fellow passenger in the direction of our home in Guilford, he was unceremoniously dumped at a gas station in the area from where he was finally able to phone. Driving conditions were treacherous and I was rehearsing Schola back in New Haven, so there he sat, thumbing back issues of Car and Driver until I could get back to collect him. However, after this inauspicious start his visit was a great experience for all concerned, and the concert in St. Mary’s Church of Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, Britten’s rarely performed A.M.D.G. set and MacMillan’s sixteen voice Mairi was warmly applauded.

If my friends had suggested during The King’s Singers’ silver jubilee year (and my last with that group, now celebrating its 41st year), that I would one day be conducting a professional caliber performance of Bach’s great masterpiece with singers and instrumentalists from Yale University, not only on home ground but also in Korea and China on tour, I would have considered them deluded. Had they added that my successor was to be the great Bach scholar and conductor Masaaki Suzuki from Bach Collegium Japan, I would have dismissed their predictions as quite beyond the pale.

But that is how it has turned out. Maestro Suzuki attended one of the New Haven concerts and the generous farewell reception arranged for me by the ISM, and will begin his tenure in the fall. Our performances and those that followed in Seoul, Beijing, and Shanghai were a resounding success and, I hope, a tribute to Margot’s original vision for Schola, to the refinements of that vision by her successor Martin Jean, and to the mission of the ISM. In particular, Martin’s enthusiasm over the years and tenacity to see the tour through at a time when the economic conditions were deteriorating more rapidly than anyone could have predicted – and with the swine flu all over the news – were inestimable, and we owe him an enormous debt of gratitude.

After going full steam for 40 years Hilary and I are now looking forward to the idea of moving to the house in France we have owned since 1989 and easing up – a little, at least!  As I wander off in the direction of Europe after a fabulous tour to Korea and China, my thanks go out to all the many students and colleagues who have made our time in New Haven so special, along with my good wishes to all at the Institute and the School who foster and combine the exceptional talents of these students to produce such fine sacred music to such an extraordinarily high standard.

ALUMNI NEWS | JOB LISTINGS | CALENDAR