The Fountain City Brass Band, William Baker Festival Singers and organist Jan Kraybill perform in Helzberg Hall in a joint concert for the National Association of Pastoral Musicians’ national convention. Credit: Suzanne Frisse Lathrop
Some of the best musicians in Kansas City were brought together for a national audience in a special concert in Helzberg Hall. The concert was part of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians’ 47th national convention, which took place in Kansas City July 8-11.
“Fountains of Faith: A Concert of Forces” included Grammy Award-nominee Jan Kraybill on organ, the William Baker Festival Singers, and the multi-award-winning Fountain City Brass Band for a performance of sacred and secular music for an enthusiastic crowd.
Though the stage regularly sees the power of the 80 person Kansas City Symphony, for this performance the 30 strong brass band and 30+ member Festival Singers filled the space with a buffet of style and sound that put the varied talents of Kansas City on full display.
Kraybill opened the performance with Grayston Ives’ Intrada, with a cascade of fanfares in all-consuming sound and a full throttle final chord on Helzberg Hall’s Julie Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ, Opus 3875. The William Baker Festival Singers, conducted by William Baker, did a set of three songs, starting with Edmund Joliffe’s somber “Wessobrunn Prayer,” using the traditional 8th century German prayer in English translation. They next performed Sean Sweeden’s “In the Beginning,” a mesmerizing work of limited text, but interesting layers. (Sweeden is the group’s composer-in-residence.) And they capped the set with Anton Bruckner’s “Christus Factus Est Pro Nobis,” a contemplative piece with intense, soaring tones.
Due to space limitations, the choir was situated at the rear of the stage, which somewhat dampened their resonance, having to sing “across” the members of the band seated in front, but the performance was nevertheless well done and well received.
The stunning skill and power of the Fountain City Brass Band is not as appreciated in Kansas City as it should be, given the ensemble’s many national and international awards, but this performance’s audience was given a taste of their precise technical and lyrical ability in Paul Lovatt-Cooper’s “Vitae Aeternum (Eternal Life),” from the explosive beginning, the lovely chorale moments (with quotations from hymns), and dynamic aptitude that set the whole hall ringing.
The piece had all the qualities of a concert closer, energetic and surprising, and quite an experience for those in the hall. Fountain City Brass Band was conducted by Roger Oyster, former principal trombone with the Kansas CIty Symphony.
Kraybill performed two more solos, bookending the Singers’ set of spirituals. She is a force to be reckoned with all on her own, and her rendition of “Outer Hebrides: A Fantasy on Three Traditional Celtic Melodies,” by Paul Halley, had an ethereal air, the pipes of the organ and arcing swoop of Helzberg Hall bathed in green light. Her final solo was the intermezzo from Charles Widor’s Symphony no. 6 for organ, a marathon cascade of tones.
The Festival Singers performed three spirituals, a treasured part of their repertoire. The first two were jubilant arrangements by Michael Richardson on traditional songs “The Morning Trumpet” and “Promised Land,” and an arrangement “My God is a Rock” by Alice Parker. This one was at first slower paced, the soloist upending the energy with soulful enthusiasm in a declamatory role, and the work evolved into a joyful shout.
Fountain City next performed “Hope” by Stijn Aertsgeerts, the melodies riding on waves of swelling dynamics and cymbal crashes, with an interesting “sigh” effect laced through the piece.
As this was an audience of primarily church musicians, it was natural to include some congregational singing in the program. Audience members were encouraged to stand and sing “Crown Him with Many Crowns,” in an arrangement by Richard Proulx (an octavo was handed out as we found our seats prior to the concert). With all the onstage musicians and hundreds in the audience, it was a tremendously joyous, all-encompassing, heartfelt experience.
The final piece of the evening was a collaborative performance of the finale from Camille Saint-Saëns’ Symphony no. 3 “Organ Symphony” in an arrangement for brass band and organ by Fountain City’s founder and principal euphonium Lee Harrelson, and once again featuring Kraybill, who opened the piece with a thunderous chord.
The piece lost nothing in the arrangement. Though it’s a brassy work to begin with, a bold and tricky piece with lots of interwoven moving parts, the string and woodwind parts were aptly handled by trumpets, cornets and euphoniums (with a little added help from a player back on piano). The hymn quotations had all the gravitas of heraldic celestials. The sheer volume of this performance caused the paper program in my hand to vibrate.
The concert could not have been a better representation of Kansas City artists and the multiple rounds of applause amplified the audience’s appreciation.
Reviewed Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
