American composers highlight ProMusica spring concert
by Jim Crawford

ANTHEM – A virtual smorgasbord of musical genres, written by some of America’s best‑known and revered composers will fill the Boulder Creek Performing Arts Center in Anthem when ProMusica Arizona presents its “Great American Composers” concert.

The PMA spring concert will take place at 7:30 p.m., March 30‑31, with some local high school choir members lending their voices to the production.

Last year, ProMusica Chorale and Orchestra received a grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts to produce a Great  American Composers Concert and to provide special seminars on the music to four North Valley high schools.

Kevin Kozacek, ProMusica  artistic director, notified the music departments of Boulder Creek, Sandra Day O’Connor, Goldwater and Mountain Ridge High Schools offering to present master class  music seminars for their students.

After participating in the seminars, students would be given the chance to audition to join ProMusica Arizona in the Great American Composers Concert.

“It’s rare that young student singers have the opportunity to perform music with a live orchestra,” said Connie Henry, PMAZ president.

Mountain Ridge High School was the only school able to clear calendar time to accommodate the Master Class Seminar.

Kozacek recently taught a workshop on “Frostiana,” a compilation of Robert Frost’s work set to music, at the school to help students understand this classic musical work.

“The opportunity for these workshops, and for the students to participate with an orchestra, is a great opportunity for the students,” Kozacek commented. “It really helps build local music programs, and the arts community in the Phoenix North Valley as a whole.”

Seven Mountain Ridge students were selected after auditions to sing in the concert with PMA. Aubrey Jensen, Robert Graves, Cheryl Bryce, Liz Upson, Jynx Gilgenbach, Kacie McSorley and Devon Yancy will join the PMA Chorale for the performance.

“I am very excited PMAZ was awarded funding that provided workshops, music and the opportunity for select members from Mountain Ridge High School to perform “Frostiana” with us,” Kozacek said. “It has been a great pleasure to work with director Cindy Durazo and her choir members.”

The concert theme was chosen based on a program launched by the National Endowment for the Arts called “American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.” This initiative provides funding and guidelines for choral music, dance, musical theater and visual arts as well as a list of great American choral works. PMA Chorale chose all of its music for this concert, including “Frostiana,” from the NEA list.

The chorale performance will feature three well‑known William Dawson spirituals including “Ain’t a That Good News,” Norman Luboff’s incredible “All My Trials,” and Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More.”

The orchestra’s selections will include the suite, “An American in Paris” by George Gershwin, Robert Washburn’s “Clarkson Centennial Overture,” and “For a Beautiful Land” by Iowa composer Linda Robbins Coleman.

The highlight of the evening will feature the combined chorale and orchestra’s performance of four pieces from Randall Thompson’s setting of Robert Frost poems, “Frostiana.”

 “It’s quite significant to realize that you don’t often hear “Frostiana” performed with the full orchestra accompanying the choir,” Kozacek said. “Many of the songs have often been done with piano accompaniment. But to hear “Frostiana” with the orchestra is like hearing a totally new piece. It is very beautiful.”

Hearing American classics for the first time can be a life‑changing experience, Henry said.

“I vividly remember the first time I heard an orchestra and chorus perform, “The Road Not Taken” and “Choose Something Like a Star.” I was a sophomore in high school attending a concert at Interlocken Music Camp in northern Michigan. I had never heard anything so beautiful and moving. Tears were running down my cheeks. That was an epiphany moment where I realized I simply had to become a choral singer, to be a part of a group making music like that.

“I am particularly thrilled that Kevin has chosen this magnificent program of inspiring American music,” Henry says. “With cutbacks in music education in our schools today, I’m afraid most children are not exposed to these American classics, the spirituals, jazz and folk music that most parents remember fondly from their youth.”

Boulder Creek Performing Arts Center is located at 40404 N. Gavilan Pkwy.

Tickets are available online at promusicaaz.org, or Andrew Z Jewelers, Anthem Community Center and Deer Valley Credit Union. For more information, call (623) 465‑4650.

General admission tickets are $15 for adults and $7 for those younger than 18. Special patron tickets are available for $50.