Millenium Choir

A musical score communicates through its performance. The choir is the instrument on which the score is played, and the conductor is the master artist. His understanding of emotion, thought, melody, nuance, sound and rhythm in his score determines how well it communicates its beauty and greatness. The Millennium Choir is composed of voices selected for their tone, timbre, warmth, clarity and the Slavic character required to meet the specific demands of Bortniansky's musical score. (Dmytro Bortniansky is a world-renowned Ukrainian classical composer of operas, songs, symphonies and other instrumental works, is best known for his over 100 a cappella sacred and liturgical pieces).

Bortniansky's works provide a considerable challenge because the character of the contemporary choir and the vocal range of the modern singer have changed. His concertos were written for a male cappella whose membership included men and boys. The voice parts therefore demand singing in a range and style not usual for the modern singer. The quality of a four-part male choir sound must be replicated in modern voice registers within a mixed (male/female) choir format.

Bortniansky's music presupposes a Slavic style of singing not typical of the modern choir, and not characteristic of English, German or even Italian music. This Slavic style includes a particular vocal colour characterized by clarity and brightness of tone combined with a rich vibrato. It demands sopranos with a strong upper range and the lightness, purity and lyrical quality of the boy soprano. It calls for contraltos, basses and contrabasses with a strong middle register. There are no baritone lines, so that tenors with a strong middle register are required to sing these voice parts.

The search for the Millennium Choir singers spanned two countries and 17 cities including Toronto, Edmonton, Saskatoon, St. Catharines, Oshawa, Hamilton, Windsor, Winnipeg, Mon-treal, Ottawa, Sudbury, London, Philadelphia, New York, Newark, Chicago, Cleveland and Detroit. The call for auditions was advertised through the press, the choral community, music schools and the Canadian Opera Company, and drew over 300 singers competing for about 50 available voice parts.

Auditions were held by Maestro Kolesnyk himself in February and March 1984. By July of that year, choir members were chosen, and contracts were signed. The Millennium Choir included 44 professionally trained singers, nearly half of whom were pursuing professional careers in Canadian and American musical theatres. About half of the choir members were of Ukrainian descent.

Once the Millennium Choir had been formed, work began in earnest towards preparing and mastering the first eighteen concertos for Phase I of the Ukraine Millennium Foundation's Bortniansky Project. The hard task of teaching the pronunciation and articulation of the Church Slavonic language to non-Ukrainian speakers was begun. The concerto texts were transliterated using a phonetic system, and practice tapes of each of the voice parts were prepared for each singer.

Weekly rehearsals were held in Toronto and area, Edmonton and area, Saskatoon, New York, Detroit and Cleveland until the spring of 1985. Eastern and western regional rehearsals were conducted several times. In the west, these were led by assistant chorusmaster Maria Dytyniak, and in the east, by Maestro Kolesnyk. Throughout this period, the maestro made the rounds of each choral centre – perfecting the music piece by piece.

By June of 1985, the preparatory work was completed. The choir assembled – for the first time as a complete group – in Ancaster, Ontario for three weeks of hard work to polish the ensemble sound and to record the first 18 concertos. The recording of these and the latter 17 works took place in the Gothic Church of Our Lady Immaculate, a site chosen for its acoustic splendor, long reverberation time and very even fall-off of sound. Phase I culminated with a grand concert at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto on July 28, 1985.

Phase I of the Bortniansky Project met with tremendous critical and popular acclaim. Work continued throughout 1986 and 1987 to prepare concertos 19 through 35, Phase II of the Bortniansky Project. Regional auditions were held to find singers in addition to core members who took part in Phase I. A schedule of regional rehearsals culminated in July of 1987, when the 50-member choir assembled at Guelph, Ontario. The recording of concertos 19–35 was completed over the course of three weeks. A concert at Roy Thomson Hall on Sunday, July 26, 1987 marked the completion of Phase II of the Bortniansky Project. (www.bortniansky.com)