Director's Notes
by Catherine Robinson

It is interesting to experience the changes over the last seven years in the choral music community in our area. Two new groups, Canticum Novum Orchestra and Chorus and Polyphony, have started in Santa Fe and Albuquerque respectively. Sangre de Cristo Chorale celebrates their 33rd season this year; the Santa Fe Women’s Ensemble toured Italy in June 2008 at the end of their 32nd season. The Santa Fe Men’s Camerata, founded in 1998, renamed itself the New Mexico Men’s Camerata last season and the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra and Chorus commemorates 27 years together. The longest-running chorus in the area is the Los Alamos Choral Society, which was founded in 1944.

Our ensemble, Coro de Cámara, celebrates its 28th season this season, 2010-2011. I have been Music Director and conductor of the group for six and a half seasons; this year marks my seventh full year as conductor. In my time with Coro, we have performed fourteen distinctively different and unique concert programs.

Last season Coro de Cámara presented two repertoires: secular holiday songs in the pop and jazz idioms accompanied by rhythm section, and folk songs and spirituals in a concert called “Let the River Run.” I think I have “a thing” for two-part titles, as well as thematic concert repertoires; actually, maybe “a thing” for titles in general. Perhaps it’s because of the thematic material in the concerts and the attention a title lends the literature. “Spring Concert” or “Holiday Concert” just doesn’t interest me like a special title. Thus, the titles of “April Flowers: Don’t necessarily bring May showers” or “…and now for something completely different: Irreverent and Unpredictable Pairings” or “A European Christmas.”

Coro de Cámara is literally its Spanish translation: a choir of the room (or chamber choir). A chamber choir consists of 24 or fewer singers; originally, 16 or less. This season we have 20 singers (five sopranos, five altos, five tenors and five basses). Through a thorough audition process, I chose singers based on voice type and sight-reading abilities. Each person, either a returning singer or a potentially new singer, was asked to prepare a song of his or her choice. They were then asked to sight-sing a short vocal line and, lastly, were asked to vocalize to check range and vocal color.

Director's Notes continue on Page 2 .