The Esoterics and founding director Eric Banks (Photo: The Esoterics)
Vast and mysterious, calming and perilous, the ocean has been a source of inspiration for cultures around the world and a rich topic for generations of poets and musicians. This weekend, local choral ensemble The Esoterics celebrates the many moods of the sea with Oceana, a selection of contemporary vocal works spanning several continents. The group’s mini-tour of the Seattle area began on Friday, March 7 with a performance at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Laurelhurst. Performances continue on March 8 with a stop at Capitol Hill’s St. Joseph Catholic Church and conclude on March 9 at Holy Rosary Catholic Church in West Seattle.
Oceana is the first of The Esoterics’ series of “choral ecologies”, concert programs that feature music inspired by natural forces. Upcoming installments in the series include Sylvana, music of the forest, and Aetheria, music of the air. A portion of the proceeds of each performance will go to a non-profit organization working to conserve our natural resources. For Oceana, The Esoterics has chosen Splash, a local group working to provide sustainable sources of clean water to children in developing regions.
It’s no surprise that The Esoterics have been regulars at St. Joseph and Holy Rosary for years; both churches are extraordinarily friendly spaces for contemporary choral music, featuring acoustics that highlight layered harmonies and complex rhythms. This season sees The Esoterics branching out, adding St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church to their stable of venues. Friday’s concert marked the ensemble’s debut performance at St. Stephen’s, located on a quiet residential street in the Laurelhurst neighborhood.
With its steeply pitched roof and warm interior, the church provided an intimate and inviting atmosphere for the nuanced works on the program. Poised against the backdrop of St. Stephen’s beautiful floor-to-ceiling pipe organ, the choir’s 32 voices sounded exceptionally clear and close despite my seat halfway across the long sanctuary.
Known for exciting performances that blend technical mastery with musical drama and emotional depth, The Esoterics were in their element at Friday’s performance, whisking the small crowd away on an exploration of the ocean’s many moods, from calm waters to stormy seas. Nowhere was this more evident than in These oceans vast, founding director Eric Banks’ musical setting of nautical poems by Herman Melville.
Literary legend Melville was an experienced seafarer, his maritime voyages providing the fodder for a large collection of poetry as well as his classic novel Moby Dick. Banks’ These oceans vast arranges six of Melville’s poems in a loose narrative describing a journey through uncharted waters to faraway lands. Commissioned by San Francisco-based choral ensemble Clerestory, the 2012 work captures the spirit of Melville’s text with distinctive rhythms, harmonies, and layered vocal effects. Originally composed for an all-male choir, Banks has since adapted the work for The Esoterics.
Full of rich imagery, the first three movements of These oceans vast show Banks flexing his compositional muscles. In the work’s first movement, “The land of love”, we’re transported dockside with swaggering shouts of “Hail! voyagers, hail!” The rhythmic cries eventually evolve into an accompaniment for the rest of the movement, which extols the virtues of the sea. The voyage continues with “The ledges of danger”, a sailor’s prayer which splits the choir between panicked chanting and sonorous calm. Though jarring at first, the rhythmic and harmonic lurching of “The uttermost rim” eventually coalesced into a convincing interpretation of a rowdy sea shanty, complete with a harmonious chord to accompany the final chorus of “fill up and drink”.
The rest of These oceans vast turns to the introspective, featuring a series of beautiful rising melodies in the fourth movement (“The last outpost”) and fine solo performances by Christine Bell, Elliot Kraber, Kurt Kruckeberg, and Whitney Wishart in the fifth movement (“The lagoons unruffled”). After weathering a harmonic storm, the work concludes with the joy of landfall, though soft chants of the word “sleep” suggest that we might still be adrift, dreaming of land. As Banks’ first commissioned work, These oceans vast is quite an accomplishment, showcasing the composer’s capacity for writing that engages both performers and audience.
English composer Richard Rodney Bennett’s Sea change honors the work of three legendary British poets: Edmund Spenser, Andrew Marvell, and William Shakespeare. These three literary giants paint a picture of the sea as a powerful force full of mysterious isles and hungry sea monsters. Bennett’s experience with jazz and film scores is evident in the four-part Sea change, which injects the old poems with fresh musical character.
The Esoterics brought Bennett’s work to life, from the spooky confusion of Shakespeare’s “The isle is full of noises” (from The Tempest) to the roars and growls of “The waves come rolling”, a verse about sea monsters from Spenser’s 16th century epic The Faerie Queene. The ensemble seemed to relish Bennett’s challenging setting of Spenser’s text. Sung in indeterminate pitch, the piece teeters between unity and cacophony, with lots of fun monster noises in between. It’s a light-hearted romp, but Banks and the ensemble take the piece’s technical challenges seriously, keeping the performance from descending into pure silliness.
Two haunting works from opposite ends of the globe rounded out the evening. In Gösta Nystrœm’s Tre havsvisioner (“Three sea visions”) the Swedish composer reflects on his longtime love for the ocean with a trio of meditative songs based on poetry by fellow Scandinavians. Opening with soft chants that evoke gently rolling waves, Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov’s “Coral del arrecife” (“The coral of the reef”) honors the riches of the ocean, from bright corals to precious sea salt. The brief piece, with text by Pablo Neruda, forms the final movement of Oceana, Golijov’s 1996 masterpiece for orchestra and chorus. It’s a powerful work in its original form, but The Esoterics’ rendition sans orchestra brings extra intimacy to Golijov’s gem of a piece.
The Esoterics perform the Oceana program again on March 8 in Capitol Hill and on March 9 in West Seattle.
