News & Reviews

• Durango Choral Society receives national honor - June 8, 2007
• Children's Chorale enjoys Big Apple - April 9, 2003
• Choral tunes up before Big Apple debut - December 7, 2002
• Choral Society, friends in concert at the Hall - December 6, 2002
• Symphony shines with dark bipolar tunes - November 18, 2002
• Durango Choral society kicks off music season - September 27, 2002
• Animas Music Fest opens with salute to Gospel of St. Luke - May 20, 2002
• Concert program features choral society - February 22, 2002

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) joined Chorus America in honoring five choral ensembles for their adventurous programming during the 2006–2007 concert season with the ASCAP/Alice Parker Adventurous Programming Award. The Durango Choral Society received Honorable Mention for its 2006 performance of La Koro Sutro with the Animas Music Festival. The special awards presentation held June 8th at the Chorus America Annual Conference in Los Angeles, CA.

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The Big Apple was a juicy morsel for the Durango Children's Chorale. Six months of planning, rehearsing and fund-raising all came together at the end of March when the DCC traveled to New York City.

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When 12-year-old Claire Clancy stares into the audience during the Durango Children's Chorale Sunday performances, she may envision what it is like to sing at the Lincoln Center in New York City.

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The Durango Choral Society, the Children's Chorale and the Women's Choir will perform "A Traditional Family Christmas" Sunday at 3 and 7 p.m. in the Fort Lewis College Community Concert Hall.

The rousing, sing-along holiday celebration will have an additional Durango touch from special guests, the Bar-D Wranglers. The quartet of Gary Cook, Matt Palmer, Bob Minser and Cy Scarborough will sing such favorites as "Silver Bells," "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Sleigh Ride" and "Jingle Bells."

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The San Juan Symphony appears to be a great success. Saturday evening's display of "Image and Imagination" was a highly respectful affair, complete with equal amounts of power and subtlety.

And if the local symphony had a few amateur moments, those were outweighed by all the rest.

The night began a little hesitantly with the first few notes of Fauré's "Pavane," but the musicians swiftly moved into pace and provided a rollicking number. This piece couldn't have sounded less like one might imagine a pavane, a 16th century court dance, to sound. Fauré (1845-1924) must have had a darker vision. It begins as a simple dance, and occasionally reverts to that, but spends most of its time building in menace like a stalking, hulking beast. The whole thing has a woodland feel – grim and compelling.

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It looks like a brave new season for the Durango Choral Society. Those in charge seem to know just the right combination of the dynamic and the static: Uncharted territory will be explored musically, while prices remain the same (as they have for several years) or get even lower.

The society brings in the fall season with "He and She" on Oct. 26. The Durango Women's Choir – a select group of 13 singers – will face off against the Fort Lewis College Men's Ensemble.

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Innovative programming has become synonymous with the Animas Music Festival, and Friday night's ninth season opener was creative and impressive.

In collaboration with the Durango Choral Society, Animas Chamber Players, Durango Women's Chorus and the 3rd Avenue Dance Company, "The Song of Luke" was performed to a near-capacity crowd in the Fort Lewis Community Concert Hall.

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Guest conductor Adam Flatt points to the "interesting flow to the program" that the San Juan Symphony and Durango Chroal Society will present in its concerts this weekend.

"The three before intermission, in different musical ways, reflect in a romantic, heroic way on exploration. And after intermission we're in the New World," Flatt said. Those three include Erich Wolfgang Korngold's "The Sea Hawk Overture," Benjamin Britten's "Courtly Dances" and Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Serenade to Music." The after-intermission finale will be Antonin Dvorak's "Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World.'"

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