WELCOME CHRISTMAS!
Carols Shimmer With New Sounds

By Katryn Conlin, VocalEssence

VocalEssence Ensemble Singers

(Sounding Board, December 2002) When you think of percussion, do thundering drum solos, marching bands, and pounding tympani come to mind? If so, the thought of new Christmas music for chorus and percussion might come as a little bit of a surprise - the kind of surprise that could put a much needed spark in the well-worn Christmas choral repertoire.

For the past five years, the Forum and VocalEssence (formerly the Plymouth Music Series) have co-sponsored the "Welcome Christmas!" Carol Contest. Every year, the competition has challenged composers to write new carols for chorus with a specific instrumental accompaniment (or in some years, no instruments at all). This year, voice and percussion are the sounds of the season.

"Each year we give composers across America a unique challenge in composing a carol -- this year it was to write for voices accompanied by one or two percussionists," says Philip Brunelle, artistic director of VocalEssence. "What sparkling, shimmering sounds could a composer find that would add a fresh touch to a new carol?" An orchestral percussionist himself, Brunelle knew that the wide palette of sounds in the percussion section would lend itself well to holiday music.

Sixty-eight composers from 28 states submitted new carols. When the dust had settled and the winners were selected, Mary Lynn Place Badarak of Atlanta and Paul Lohman of Minneapolis had risen to the top. Both composers will receive an award of $1,000, and their carols will be premiered at VocalEssence's annual "Welcome Christmas!" concerts, on December 8, 14, and 15 in Minneapolis.

Of course, limiting composers to percussion instruments is like limiting great chefs to pasta dishes - the possibilities are still endless. Badarak and Lohman each made distinctive and defining instrumental selections. Both composers also found themselves drawn to old texts.

Mary Lynn Place Badarak and Paul Lohman welcome Christmas.

Badarak began with a hymn-text written in 1811 by Reginald Heber, giving the text a charming, playful melody. "'Brightest and Best' is actually an Epiphany carol, and as I'm composer-in-residence at the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Atlanta, I've been mulling over a new setting for quite a while," she explains. "Previously, the words were set to the Sacred Harp tune 'Star of the East' in a minor key, which I found rather dark and dour."

Last summer, the contest inspired Badarak to sit down and work on a new setting to better suit the text. "The idea of using bells and percussion added lightness and brightness," she says. "Once I decided what I wanted to do with the text, the music simply wrote itself."

Badarak's work will be performed with handbell accompaniment, but not by a bell choir. "The bells will be hung from a rack, and the instrumentalists will strike them with mallets," she explains. "In the rehearsal, we'll be experimenting with various types of mallets to get the right sound and sustain from the bells."

For "Angels Heard on High," Lohman created a new melody for the traditional "Angels We Have Heard on High." Where Bardarak gravitated toward the lighter sounds of handbells, Lohman accents his music with the resonant sounds of a tam tam (Chinese gong) and four cymbals of various timbres. The carol is fast and joyous, says the composer. "The percussionists will roll on the cymbals with mallets, creating an effect like the fluttering of angel wings."

Brunelle describes Lohman's carol as a fresh departure. "People are familiar with arrangements of 'Angels We Have Heard on High' that begin loudly and stay that way," he says. "Paul's new version is unusual in that it begins very softly, with the four cymbals followed by the chorus singing as softly as possible. It gradually builds but always keeps a gentle, atmospheric sound that gives a different understanding and feeling to the text."

As for writing a carol in August, Lohman says he writes a carol every year to include with his annual Christmas cards. The September deadline simply prompted him to move his up a bit. As for Badarak, she wryly claims that writing a Christmas carol during a sweltering Atlanta summer helped keep the heat at bay.

Over five years, the contest winners have continually exceeded the sponsors' expectations, says Brunelle. "Every year we've seen many entries in a great range of styles. Many of the winning carols have already been published, or will be published soon. Our hope is that these carols will find homes in the libraries of choirs across the country."

Each year a new challenge for the contest is issued. Past contests have yielded a cornucopia of a cappella carols, carols for audience participation, carols with harp, and carols with string orchestra. Next year's theme remains a mystery, but Brunelle has no doubt that VocalEssence and American Composers Forum will join forces again for a 2003 contest. "We'll sit down after Christmas and compare the five years of carols and see where we go from here," he says. "We definitely will have another competition. I'm just not sure what it will be yet."

The new carols will be featured in the 2003 national broadcast of "Welcome Christmas!", produced by Minnesota Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International. For more information about the Welcome Christmas! concerts or VocalEssence, visit www.VocalEssence.org.