10th Anniversary Concert - it was beautiful

Driving the Cold Winter Away, for the 10th year in a row.

(photo: Mark Braun)

It was beautiful. Perfect, really. I couldn't have wished for or planned for or dreamed of a better anniversary concert.

Despite the fact that the temperature had dropped 40+ degrees in less than 24 hours. Despite the fact that the Tuesday before the concert I was diagnosed with "bronchitis that would have been pneumonia if you'd waited a day". Despite the fact that, as a result of the diagnosis and the loss of 4 pre-concert productive days, I had to cut two songs from the set list and forgot to arrange for an official photographer and nearly forgot to arrange for a videographer (videos coming soon) and forgot to arrange for ticket takers and CD sellers. Despite the fact that the dress I wanted to wear hadn't arrived by the Wednesday before the concert and I had not even a clue about shoes yet...

Yes, inspite of allll this, I'm so happy with how everything turned out.  The weather was frightfully blustery outside, but inside, the church was warm and cozy. The antibiotics worked in record time (so did all the over-the-counter remedies recommended by my wonderful pharmacist and the hot whiskey prescribed by my mother). No one noticed the two missing songs - in fact, the concert probably would have been too long with them. My friend Tim saved the day with the video, my Mom and Dad and friends stepped in to sell tickets and CDs (Dad would like you to know he sold FOUR CDs, all by himself), some audience members snapped iPhone photos and shared them with me.

The Second Half Dress. I hear it looked like a disco ball when I moved.

Awesome.

(photo: Freddy Madrigal) 

And my dress - it arrived and Mom altered it in record time. It was the first time a dress I wore at a concert got applause of its own. In the first half of the concert, I wore the legendary red ruffled dress that's featured on the cover of my All Hayle to the Days album to represent where I've been, all that I'd dreamed of, who I was when I started. And then after intermission, I changed into a short, silver-sequined, ultra-shiny number (with matching silver shoes, yes indeed) to say: "This is who I am now, and I'm loving being me!" People gasped when I walked out - applauded like they normally do, but then sparked up the applause just for the dress.

I haven't even talked about the music yet because, miraculously, every single song went off perfectly, without a hitch, without a vocal waver or a missed note or a missed cue or a slipped pedal (silver shoes = yay!). I have no idea how I did it, how my voice rang out so strong and clear, how my band followed me in my half-sick state, but we did it. And it was magical to be there performing and experiencing it all myself, to follow that path from the very beginnings, to perform the songs that meant "holiday concert" to me, many of which ended up on my All Hayle to the Days album. To move into my new compositions, to tell of my travels to Ireland, and Paris, then Ireland, Paris and Ireland and how they inspired the new me, the new music and art I make.

My good friends Ann and Sara, out of hiatus as Prima Vox.

On my "Fire & Ice" - oh, Paris memories.

Oh, those girls and our voices...

 

I'm a very happy harpist, a very grateful girl, grateful to everyone who performed with me, helped me, hauled harps and CDs and candelabra and music stands and harp benches and music bags and candles for me, made things happen behind the scenes, set up sound for me (Ann Rosenquist Fee, that would be you)...thank you.

Happy, happy, warm start to the winter season!

More Concert video: Ave

The song I wrote in Ireland, the words that I hold dear, performed by the women who make my songs compositions come alive.

Ave.

Singing in The Chapel

Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel is a special place. I recorded my album "The Light and The Lady" there. I've sung in countless concerts and had some of the best musical moments of my life there.

 And tonight, Prima Vox performed for the 

Music and Meditation Series there.

We sang Hildegard. Monteverdi. Charpentier. Even some Kortuem (my new "Ave," a capella - it works beautifully without the harp, too). The sound is glorious in the Chapel. The music barely passed our lips before it spun up to that ceiling, whirled around, crashed into the far wall and came lingering back toward us. Languid sound. Rich sound. 

 Holy sound. Hear for yourself.

"Ave Maria," Monteverdi.

I don't know how the meditators felt while we were singing, but I was in an altered state if I do say so myself. Looking up at Sara and Ann, seeing their eyes closed and heads tilted, I think they were, too. Near levitation. The music we sing was meant to be sung in places like this.

Afterward, there was silence for a long time. And the meditation group left the balcony, one by one, thanking us in hushed voices, with dreamy-looking eyes.

"It was beautiful."

"You transported me."

"I didn't want it to stop."

"Thank you - I feel such peace."

"Please, please come back next week."

And then came our favorite comment: "Wow, I thought you were a lot older." We must have looked surprised, because the commenter added: "You know, I thought you were a bunch of older nuns from Bulgaria singing and here you are, so young..." We told him to quit while he was ahead.

And we headed off into the mild March evening, feeling young, renewed by music. Holy.

And more new music!

Ave. In Latin, in means "hail" - in greeting, or welcome. I knew this song which you'll hear two versions of here would be named "Ave" even before it was finished, even before I arranged it for Sara, Ann and I to sing as Prima Vox. 

The opening perfect 5th motif sang out from me every time I drove past or stomped around in or stood in awe of another spectacle Ireland offered. There was such a range of wonder - human-made, natural, across millennia, encompassing different purposes and faiths. It made me start wondering about what we consider holy. And Ireland certainly offered a range of holinesses as well: crumbling Christian monasteries, ancient portal tombs, patchwork-green hills, megalithic structures situated to the rising and setting winter solstice sun, mountains with tiny winding roads that had my mother white-faced and praying as we drove them, wells dedicated to saints or goddesses (or both), devotion to traditional music, divine hospitality. For me, "Ave" symbolizes and encompasses all of those holinesses.

First, the harp solo.

 

"Ave" - harp solo

© Amy Kortuem 2011

When I returned from Ireland and played this song for Ann and Sara, Sara said, "It sounds like a prayer." We sing so many versions of Ave Maria that I thought it only natural to add a section of the words of the prayer to my music...and it became an entirely different "Ave."

"Ave" - Prima Vox

© Amy Kortuem 2011

Again, enjoy. And if you do, please share.

Prima Vox - fire on an icy morning

Our first performance of 2011 was actually supposed

to have taken place on December 12, 2010.

That day a blizzard was raging outside so the service was (wisely) rescheduled. Today was the day. It was a great decision all around. It gave Prima Vox one last chance to sing our beloved Christmas chants and songs, to give special encore performances of my "Ave" and "Fire & Ice," and to start 2011 with the sound of our voices.

Fire & Ice was the theme of the service, actually. The "ice" was taken care of the by morning temperatures (-2 F, I'm not even kidding). The "fire" was set by our sizzling performance, of course, but also by the burning bowl ritual. The congregation members wrote down what they wished to release during 2011 on pieces of paper and burned that paper in the fire set at the front of the fellowship. 

That flame, the ice outside, the girls singing "Fire & Ice" with me one more time...it was the perfect first performance of the year.

Hear and see Fire & Ice...in surround sound

When I composed my piece Fire & Ice in Paris last year, I wrote it for three voices: Me, Ann and Sara (a.k.a. Prima Vox). Performing it with them, and with the harp, has always been so gorgeous, so fulfilling.

But in the back of my mind, I've always wondered what it would sound like with more voices on the "Ann" and "Sara" lines. Like, with a whole choir of women singing with me. A girl can dream big, right?

That dream came true last Sunday. Dr. David Dickau, conductor of Minnesota State University, Mankato, concert and chamber choirs, invited me to perform at their holiday concert. He'd asked me to accompany the choir on a couple of pieces (I broke out the metronome to rehearse those...tick, tock, tick, tock...) and also to play a solo set. One of the pieces I proposed to him was my Fire & Ice...with all the women's voices singing with me.

He agreed. (He's a composer, too, and understands these things, I'm sure.) The rehearsal was a total overwhelm of sound and clash and release and just complete soul fire for me. And the concert...well, you can see and hear for yourself right here.

Ann (of Prima Vox fame) was at the concert and agreed to be my videographer. God bless her for capturing everything I'd wanted to see: my hands on the harp, the candles lit in that icy cold, blue-lit church, the girls surrounding the sanctuary and singing, the audience listening with eyes closed, Dr. Dickau's smile at the end. (I cut out the part of the video where I come back to my seat after my composed bow and put my head on my Aunt Sheila's shoulder and cry.)

But I think you'll get the idea. Enjoy.

All Hallows Eve with Prima Vox

 The posters were called "alarming."

(Judith Slaying Holofernes by Artemesia Gentileschi)

 Holding a concert on All Hallows Eve, "daring."

 The music was called "haunting.

The admission? "Free Will" offering...

The posters suggested that people come

dressed as their favorite martyrs.

(This is Martha Lindberg, a.k.a. St. Blandina,

who accompanied us on the recorder.)

The evening was filled with an eerie, magical quality. The music was indeed mesmerizing, the readings were chilling. I even sneaked in a creepy little arrangement of "Ring Around the Rosy" on the harp while tom the pastor and Richard the verger lit the incense. The dare was worth it. We're sure All the Saints were very happy with us the next day.

Evensong 2

Prima Vox performed our second evensong at our musical home, the Church of the Holy Communion in St. Peter. We love singing for their services, and wanted to share more of the sacred music we'd performed at the Mankato Symphony Orchestra concert in May.

Though it was 7:30 when we were ready to begin...

the late spring evening still illuminated the windows of the church.

This time, the church's organist, Kristi Class, was our accompanist

on that lovely old organ.

 Three candles for three Voxes.

After singing in the gorgeous but cavernous Christ Chapel,
this intimate space felt like home again.

After the last note was sung and the last prayer prayed
and the last candle extinguished, we set to doing what Voxes do
after they're done performing...

kicking off our shoes and making piles of music
for our next performance!

Prima Vox Goes for Baroque with the Mankato Symphony Orchestra

Our performance with the Mankato Symphony Orchestra went very well. There was an hour and a half of music before we took our places at the front of Christ Chapel in St. Peter, so the room and the audience had been gorgeously primed.

There were nerves, of course, and some last-minute wardrobe adjustments (like pinning part of a $12.99 yard of black velvet to the back of my dress to cover some unmentionables). But The Voxes Three calibrated by humming and warming up together and we were ready.

We began with Monteverdi's "Ave Maria" and the crowd hushed.

The woman in the front row started to get tears in her eyes, and I had to look away.

"Sweet, Exclude Me Not" (a kind of racy love song for such an elegant concert)

was so lovely with Jim McGuire's accompaniment.

The Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria" was gorgeous

with David Fienen's accompaniment on the harpsichord. 

My prayers to the Gods of the G Above High C

were answered, and I hit that note like never before.

Here I am dramatically acting out a line from the catch "The Thirsty Vampires"

about vampires leaving their coffins and sucking poor morals dry.

(Never fear, the song is really about wine.)

Everything else went so smoothly. Three happy and proud Voxes unpinned their black velvet and went to Richard's Restaurant and Pub for some celebratory wine (because more things should be about wine than songs) and proceeded to talk about, of all things, medieval music. We "went for Baroque" well enough. There is a return to chant and early polyphony in our near future now.

Prima Vox: a trio again

While Ann was in Africa on sabbatical, Sara and I were such good little Voxes. We got together, rehearsed our parts and tried not to giggle too much during those awkward, empty spaces when Ann would be singing.

Ann's (finally) home. 

Evidence: three music stands and no more empty spaces to count through.

We're rehearsing intensely for our performance with the Mankato Symphony Orchestra's "Go For Baroque" concert on May 16th. Yes, Baroque music. It's been a stretch for us, since our focus for three years has been Medieval music, but it's been a good challenge. Sara searched out some wonderful pieces for us to perform that, while definitely of the Baroque period, still have some whispers of our familiar Medieval cadences, dissonances and nearly melismatic runs. We've each had to learn something — I, for instance, have a couple of trills and a few high notes that had me worried but I think they're sufficiently tackled.

We're performing in Christ Chapel at Gustavus Adolphus College (where the photo above was taken). It's a space meant for singing in, and during our rehearsal there it was so interesting to hear how our voices blended and stood out and raced toward the ceiling and then filtered down to the pews. It took some getting used to, but by the end of the few hours we spent there, we really felt like we'd made peace with our three voices and that huge space.

We're so fortunate to be able to collaborate with some incredible musicians on a few of our pieces.

Jim McGuire put aside his jazz guitar to provide 

a very lute-like accompaniment on "Sweet, Exclude Me Not."

 And David Fienen stepped down from the magnificent organ

in Christ Chapel to accompany "Maria Magdalena" 

on the little portative organ — it's the perfect sound.

We have a few more rehearsals in the kitchen to go, and then The Voxes Three will be ready to step onto a stage of a very different kind. New opportunities are good.

Prima Vox Epiphany

When I finally let it hit me, it hit me hard: The Sunday service at the Church of the Holy Communion would be the last time the Voxes Three would sing together until April.

Ann's going on a 3-month sabbatical to South Africa. We knew it was coming. We have talked about this and prepared for it for almost a year. We've planned ahead for future engagements, we have music chosen for performing with the Mankato Symphony Orchestra in May, we're going to be learning a medieval Mass to sing at the Church of the Holy Communion this summer. Ann is taking a stack of music to Africa, and Sara and I will be getting out our calendars this week to set up Vox 2/3 rehearsals.

But somehow I hadn't let it sink in that the three-ness that we are won't happen again for a while. Sitting in the church Sunday morning, it all washed over me. The church was still decorated for Christmas, and was celebrating Epiphany. Memories of our Fire & Ice concert on December 19th made my eyes burn with tears that I was fighting to hold back so that I could get up and sing.

It made me realize what a huge part of my musical life is filled by our singing. Prima Vox has woven itself into my priorities in a big way. It's challenged me, enriched my music career, given me confidence in my voice that I've never had before. And that was my own epiphany, of sorts.

Until we meet again, sweetly singing.

Prima Vox Fire & Ice: After

And it was done. We sang my "Fire & Ice" composition as our last piece on the program. There were at least 10 seconds of silence before anyone applauded. And then they applauded and applauded. We'd created such light and such warmth in that space, and from the tears streaming down audience members' faces during the standing ovation, we knew we'd touched them.

We escaped to our dressing room downstairs, crying ourselves. We collapsed together in a hug, the three Voxes and Ursula, not saying anything, just holding each other and listening to the applause still thundering upstairs.

After we blew our noses and repaired our mascara, we ventured upstairs again and were surrounded by the hugs and congratulations of our audience.

Ursula and The Voxes, post-concert.

The winter night had definitely been set aglow.

Prima Vox Fire & Ice: during

We Voxes hid out downstairs and listened to the crowd arriving at the church. At 7:10, we got the news: the church was standing room only and it looked like everyone had arrived.

So we tiptoed up the stairs, crept over the icy sidewalk outside and entered the church from the back just in time to hear Reverend Ursula, again our mistress of ceremonies, welcoming everyone with this reading, written about the walk to midnight Mass in a French country place almost 100 years ago…

We started off, a number of us, together in a stream of light. Our lanterns cast great shadows on the white road, crisp with frost. As our little group advanced it saw others on their way, people from the farm and people from the mill, who joined us, and once on the Place de l’Eglise we found ourselves with all the parishioners in a body. No one spoke — the icy north wind cut short our breath; but the voice of the chimes filled the silence. We entered, accompanied by a gust of wind that swept into the porch at the same time we did; and the splendours of the altar, studded with lights, green with pine and laurel branches, dazzled us from the threshold.

We began to sing from the back of the church, processed and so the concert started.

Here we are, singing "Stella Splendens": me, Sara and Ann.

And Ursula, watching from the background.

Sara sang "Edi Beo Thu Hevene Quene"

while I accompanied her on my harp.

It was magical. Icy outside, warm inside. Captivated audience, beautiful little church, candles blazing. Chants and carols and songs and harps. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Prima Vox Fire & Ice: before

We've tried just showing up a half hour before showtime, warming up and then singing. And while the results have never been disastrous, they've felt disconnected.

So the Voxes Three got together at 10:00 a.m. on the day of the Fire & Ice concert to begin the process of establishing their special Vox-mind-connection...

and to get manicures.

Even me, at the encouragement of Ann and Sara.
I can't remember the last time I had paint on my short little harpist nails.
It was kind of distracting when I played the first time.
But then I tend to be easily distracted by shiny things...

The day of the concert was filled with other important tasks, too. Of course, we warmed up, went through our music, got things organized and went over every detail we could think of.

We got the sanctuary of the Church of the Holy Communion set up

with three music stands, two harps, music, lights and candles.

The view from where we sang.

Then we started calling in the reinforcements:

ticket taking...

rides and reservations...

ushering and general Vox attending-to.

Thanks Vox crew!

We couldn't have gotten this all together without your help!

Prima Vox lights the winter night afire tomorrow night, December 19th

Read all about it!

We had our dress rehearsal last night at the Church of the Holy Communion. I've said it before, but can't resist saying it again: the sound in there is absolutely PERFECT for our voices. It's intimate, round, warm and so beautiful. We sang through each piece, savoring the overtones and the delicious blend of our voices, so unique and just so...right.

Ursula Christ will be our mistress of ceremonies, and she read our chosen readings with passion. She'll set the scene between songs with elegance and power.

Come prepared.

Prima Vox and dreams come true

Lately, many people have been wondering how the Celtic music I am generally known for performing informs my performances of medieval music and chant with Prima Vox.

My secret was out when we formed Prima Vox — I've actually been an early music geek since high school. While my friends were listening to Van Halen and U2, I was secretly wearing out my recordings of madrigals, recorder consorts, Renaissance Christmas music and medieval masses.

When the harp came into my life, I happily put away the classical music I'd grown up playing on the piano. With the harp came the sound, the aesthetic, the mood, the music I'd been listening to and loving for years. Estampies, cantigas, ballads, carols were the first music I learned to play on the harp.

So early music, not Celtic music, has informed all of my musical pursuits for a long time. Celtic music included, because it is eerily similar to the early music I love — they have the same modal scales and haunting melodies that "get" me every time I hear and play them.

When I was in college, my favorite classes were Early English Literature, where I learned to pronounce Middle English (thanks, Dr. Harry Solo), and Music History, which opened a world of resources for finding the music I loved. I remember the day in the music library when I discovered a recording of Middle English lyrics set to music. I raced back to my Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume 1 and found those lyrics. I was in Heaven. I made photocopies of those pages of lyrics, memorized them and kept them with my music, hoping I would perform them myself...someday, somewhere.

For Prima Vox's Fire & Ice concert,
I've pulled out those old, yellowed photocopies
and brushed up on my arrangement of "Gabriel Fram Hevene King."

Finally, my early dream has come true. December 19th, 2009, will be that someday. The somewhere will be Church of the Holy Communion in St. Peter. Thank you, Prima Vox.

Music among the dishes

Prima Vox rehearsed in my kitchen today. Why?
• It's warmer in there in front of the roaring space heater.
• It's closer to the hot water for tea.
• It sounds good in there with notes bouncing off the Jadeite.
• We have plenty of counter space to spread out our music.

I think it's the first time I've ever
played my harp in the kitchen.
Maybe I should do it more often.

Note the pile of dishes in the sink. I scraped out a couple of minutes to cook the other night AND do dishes. It's been a hectic couple of weeks with rehearsals and playing for holiday parties and going to holiday parties and more rehearsals.

'Tis the season. And I love it.

To Drive the Cold Winter Away Concert 2009

The words I love to hear: "It was the best concert EVER!" And my friend Judy wasn't the only one to say it this year. Everyone loved the French music program, the tales of my Paris adventures, the arrangements for the band, the atmosphere, the presentation.

I loved it, too.

Half the time I felt like I was in two places at once: in Paris dreaming and composing, and in Mankato singing my experience. The concert was a dream time of getting to relive so many Parisian memories through music. And the audience was so responsive and so appreciative.

The band played beautifully.
All my creative arrangements and markings
came together perfectly that night.

And as Prima Vox, Sara and Ann and I
sang down the Angel Gabriel.
We also performed my new piece I composed in Paris,
"Fire & Ice."

I ended the concert in tears. The emotion of performing that song, the success of the concert, the bliss I saw on audience members' faces, the memories of Paris...it was all too much to hold in.

I stood afterward in my fabulous green taffeta dress,
accepting applause, smiling through tears,
blowing kisses to my audience.
The cold winter was definitely driven away.

photos by my good friend Tim Madsen

From one thing to another

It hasn't even been a week since my holiday concert, and I've already had to switch gears. Fast. Because it's only 15 days until Prima Vox's "Fire & Ice" concert on December 19th.

The posters to prove it.

We gave a presentation on Hildegard von Bingen for the Mankato Area Lifelong Learners today and stayed at the Church of the Holy Communion for a long time afterward, singing and singing and singing in preparation for Fire & Ice.

Discussing the concert setup during a break.

Getting music in order.

Testing the ambiance of the church.

Seeing how the concert harp will sound in that space.

It was such a satisfying and productive night. It's wonderful to be at the point of knowing the music where we can finesse and talk about subtle dynamics and swells and nuances. We decided tonight that 98% of the music is nearing the point of "ascending." That other 2% will be taken individually to the "woodshed" this weekend and worked out with note-banging and repetition.

We can't wait to set the winter night afire on December 19th!