S2 E08: Your Colors Are Like My Dreams: Vince Peterson and Choral Chameleon
This week we chat with Vince Peterson, the director of Choral Chameleon and the Empire City Men’s Chorus, as well as the founder and brilliant mind behind the newly minted Greenhouse Music School. Vince is also the Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal by Chorus America -- and in this episode, you’ll hear why.
Music excerpts
“Annunciation,” by Jeremy Howard Beck, performed by Choral Chameleon Chorus
“Goshu Ondo Suite: Part 3,” by Eri Yamamoto, performed by Eri Yamamoto Trio & Choral Chameleon
"What are we becoming?" by Dale Trumbore
“Qing Yi 青衣'” by Yangfan Xu, performed by Choral Chameleon Ensemble, Nathan Plante, trumpet
“Fragile” by Sting, arranged by Vince Peterson, performed by Choral Chameleon
Theme Song: Mr. Puffy by Avi Bortnik, arr. by Paul Kim. Performed by Dynamic
Episode references
Episode Transcript
Intro [00:00:07] Hello and welcome to In Unison, the podcast for choral conductors, composers and choristers, where we interview members of our choral community to talk about new music, new and upcoming performances, and discuss the interpersonal and social dynamics of choral organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. We are your hosts. I am Zane Fiala, Artistic Director of the International Orange Chorale of San Francisco. And I'm Giacomo DiGrigoli, a tenor in IOCSF, the Golden Gate Men's Chorus and the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. And this is In Unison.
Zane [00:00:44] This week we chat with Vince Peterson, the director of Choral Chameleon and the Empire City Men's Chorus, as well as the founder and brilliant mind behind the newly minted Green House Music School. Vince is also the recipient of the Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal from Chorus America. And in this episode, you'll hear why. So let's kick off today with a piece that aptly introduces us to Vince and Choral Chameleon. And that piece is "Annunciation" by Jeremy Howard Beck with text by Marie Howe. It invites us to think about what is yet to be, about what is difficult to imagine, and about what might be happening within us; coming to life.
[00:01:32] [Music Excerpt: “Annunciation,” by Jeremy Howard Beck, performed by Choral Chameleon; Music Description: Treble voices sing a cappella, joined by bass voices, then a string quartet, at first peacefully, then a bit more tremulously and frenetic. They sing the text by Marie Howe: “And so it is myself I want to turn in that direction; not as towards a place, but it was a tilting within myself as one turns a mirror, to flash the light to where it isn’t. I was blinded like that and swam in what shone at me only able to endure it by being no one and so specifically myself. I thought I’d die from being loved like that.”]
Zane [00:04:18] So joining us today on In Unison is Vince Peterson, and Vince is a respected choral conductor, composer, arranger and teacher of music here in the United States. His 20 year hybrid career spans the worlds of choral music, theater, sacred music and music education. In 2008, Vince founded the vocal ensemble Choral Chameleon, which is based in New York City. Under his leadership, Choral Chameleon has premiered more than 150 works and has won critical acclaim in The New York Times, The New York Concert Review, The Examiner and several other publications. In 2015, the ensemble was awarded with the prestigious ASCAP Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programing, and in 2017, the group was named the first vocal ensemble artist in residence at National Sawdust, an undisputed new music hub in New York. In addition to his work with Choral Chameleon, Vince also serves as Artistic Director of Empire City Men's Chorus, which he has recently ushered through its 25th anniversary season. Congratulations on that. Vince received his bachelor's in composition in 2003 from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, studying with Conrad Susa and our good friend David Conte. And in 2007, he earned a double masters in both composition and choral conducting from Mann's College of Music, where he studied under Mark Shapiro and David Loeb. That year he was also awarded with the Singular Music Teachers League Award. And finally, in 2018, Vince was awarded the Louis Botto Award for Innovative Action and Entrepreneurial Zeal by Chorus America. Welcome to the show, Vince.
Vince [00:06:03] Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I love what you guys are doing here.
Giacomo [00:06:09] Welcome Vince, we're so excited to have you. And we always kick off with a couple of icebreakers. So here's a couple for you. You strike me as somebody who is quite introspective, self-aware, leads a life examined (a life well examined.) So I have to ask if we were to cast the movie, the movie of your life, who would play you in the film? Who would you cast and what would the soundtrack be like?
Vince [00:06:35] Well, people always compare me to John Cusack because they always say that I look like John Cusack or he looks like me or whatever. So it might be like him or, you know, somebody like that. If you're going for, like a direct, typecast look alike. The soundtrack would be... it would have a lot of R&B and soul in it. It would have a lot of juxtaposition of like brightness and darkness together, a lot of flats right next to sharp-based sonorities. It would have a heavy, heavy, heavy handed rhythmic profile and the groove would be right in the pocket. That's what you hear. And then somewhere in the background, you would hear impressionists string figures.
Giacomo [00:07:34] I love it. Look out, Quentin Tarantino. This is going to be the best soundtrack ever. A couple more for you. You're an S.F. native.
Vince [00:07:43] I am, yes.
Giacomo [00:07:45] Which means that you have done lots of work with groups like Chanticleer and the Golden Gate Men's Chorus, which put you in the orbit of one of your mentors and a hero to many of us, Dr. Joseph Jennings. What's a pearl of wisdom Joe has shared with you over the years and or, girl, just dish. Tell us a story.
Vince [00:08:03] I remember him sort of by turns teaching me how to not take myself so seriously. But also to take the work seriously at the same time, and it was tough, I mean, he was tough on me and I didn't really appreciate it at the time, like most young people, you know, and I thought some of his methodologies were really extreme. But I was in awe of him always, and he always presented me with challenges. I'll tell you, Chanticleer was a household name for me growing up, so I kind of I don't want to say idolized him, but he seems like somebody for me, even when I was in conservatory in undergrad, he seemed like somebody who would never be.. I'd never attain. I would never get close to him. And I was playing at Metropolitan Community Church, which was then down at the bottom of Eureka Street near 18th in the Castro. And I was playing the Sunday Night Service, which was a Baptist Methodist style neo Christian service with a large LGBT gospel choir and a whole LGBT band. And we were just playing a regular Sunday night service and we were rocking. I mean, we were like really grooving out. And the pastor said Annie Nixon who is was a profound person to behold as well. She said, the one night I have to sing some sort of incantation solo in front of the choir and look who shows up. And she points up to the balcony. And here's Joe having church like City of Refuge style with his hand in the air, praise band style. And I thought, oh shit, Joe is like listening to me, you know? And he came downstairs after the service and he walked up to me and he gave me the once over looked me up and down he goes, "you Vince?" And I'm like, "Are you Joe Jennings?".
All [00:10:20] [laughing]
Vince [00:10:24] And he said to me, he goes, rehearsal's Tuesday at 7:15, don't be late.
Giacomo [00:10:31] Oh! [laughing]
Vince [00:10:34] And I said I said, excuse me. He said, "I've been looking for a pianist. Be there Tuesday, 7:15, don't be late." And I said, well, and I said to him, "well, don't you want me to audition for you or something first?" And he goes, "child, you just did." So I mean, that was my audition to become the assistant director and pianist of GGMC.
Zane [00:11:06] Wow.
Giacomo [00:11:08] I love it. That is like quintessential Joe Jennings. That is fantastic. Thank thank you for that. Zane, do you wanna take the first question and jump in?
Zane [00:11:16] Yeah. Let's talk about Choral Chameleon. Let's go right into talking about Choral Chameleon. Can you tell us a little bit about that organization and its many multifaceted branches?
Vince [00:11:28] Yeah. So Choral Chameleon is in its 13th year, which I think is so poetic that you're lucky year thirteen is the year of the pandemic. It's been interesting. I can't believe that it's been thirteen years since we started it. The mission of Choral Chameleon is simple. It is to reinvent the art of choral music from every perspective. And that means, from the singer's perspective, the listener, the board member, the volunteer, the composer, the student, anybody who's interacting with world music. And there's a lot of stuff that we've learned over the years in our laboratory, so to speak, that now at the heart of of moving the choral genre forward is interdisciplinary collaboration and finding ways for choral music to show up at the larger arts table and say, here's what we're bringing to the potluck and what are you bringing to the potluck and having a taste of what everybody has to offer. And so I started Choral Chameleon because I was shocked to find that as I integrated myself into the community here in New York, when I moved here for grad school in 05, that there was truly a need for such a group in New York City. And there are about two hundred and forty choirs, two hundred and forty plus choirs that are constituents in the New York Choral Consortium right now, and there may be more choirs beyond that in New York City. It's a huge place. So I just that was particularly shocking to me that there wasn't already somebody doing this, because what felt so instinctive or intuitive to me felt like, well, somebody here has obviously figured that out already and they're doing it. And then I went looking for that. And I didn't find it. And so began a commitment that I made to myself, I guess, as a musician, but also to my broader community to find needs that needed to be filled and just fill them. So I think of myself as the glue that holds different types of things together, different different generations of people, different types of music, different types of thought, different opposing viewpoints together. And being trained classically in conservatory for six years, I certainly witnessed around me, you know, a lot of bias, a lot of systemic issues, a lot of one-sidedness, a lot of elitism. And I got tired of people that I trusted with my own musical development telling me that a certain kind of music, a certain genre of music is not substantial, it's not substantive enough, it's not contrapuntal enough, it's not harmonically adventurous enough. And it seemed to me like because music is so multidimensional, that music can be complex in any one of these dimensions, it doesn't have to be in certain dimensions in order for it to be considered substantial. And there's room for all of us at the table.
Zane [00:15:12] Yeah, and speaking of combining different musical styles, in 2019, you collaborated with the Eri Yamamoto Jazz Trio on a recording of the Goshu Ondo Suite. To paraphrase the review in Downbeat magazine, "The concept is derived from the Goshu Ondo, a traditional dance melody from Shiga Japan, a song-and-dance-filled celebration of generations past. Yamamoto wrote full voiced melodic lines for Choral Chameleon, a 50 person choir, but managed to maintain a balance between the vocals and the superbly refined sound of her trio." Let's go ahead and hear a bit of that piece now.
[00:16:02] [Music excerpt: “Goshu Ondo Suite: Part 3,” by Eri Yamamoto, performed by Eri Yamamoto Trio & Choral Chameleon. Music description: A jazz piano trio plays a jaunty improvisation with motifs jumping out of the texture that are then echoed by the choir singing a Rōmaji transliteration of the Japanese text.]
Vince [00:17:02] So I went looking for the best singers that I could find, not just based on their raw singing ability or their musicianship, but on their familiarity with different styles and genre and also, frankly, their openness to trying different things and to move seamlessly from one genre to the other programmatically without having to worry that they were going to complain about this or that it was going to tire them out vocally or that it was, you know, and I found quickly that that was a tall order. And I took a lot of flak for it, too. And that's how I knew that I was doing something right, because I had people pushing back on me.
Giacomo [00:17:47] I want to ask a little bit about that, too, particularly the idea of embracing accountability, right? So in a time when many organizations are paralyzed and in a cycle of apathy, particularly because of covid right now, but also because, like ADEI issues have always suffered from a cycle of apathy. How do you keep your organizations accountable to your mission? How do you keep yourself accountable to your mission? How do you think about that?
Vince [00:18:14] I think it takes a village to raise our children, and I think that the age of absolutism in music was over in 1750 and some people just didn't get the memo. A conductor is not a dictator. A conductor, as far as I'm concerned, is the scum under music's foot. A conductor is the slave of music. The conductor answers to what is in the score. A conductor, if in their enthusiasm and in their aptitude and their musicianship, in their commitment is so saturated with some kind of discovery or understanding or empathy for the composer, and the human condition of that composer, and the circumstances under which something was written, and the answers that are found right there in the notes, then the singers can't help but be attracted to that. And they can't help but be, if you'll forgive the word, infected with this contagious enthusiasm to serve the music first. But, I rely on a lot of other people around me to help keep our organization running, and I do not you know, I do not ever let that leave my sight or my consciousness. I think that there's times when one person has to drive the bus or the bus will crash. And there's other times when many voices are needed at the table and it's a matter of knowing which is when, and when to use which type of leadership. But I always believe that the best leaders are the best listeners as well. And I mean, in one sense, if you want to go strict bureaucracy here, I will go to the Presbyterian Book and I will say the fastest way to slow something down is to form a committee. But sometimes a committee is what's needed, and in the case of matters having to do with racial justice, fighting racial injustice, bringing people in off the margins of society., programing accountability. I think that that is not something that I can speak to with any authority as a white CIS man. Like I just can't. And so we did form a team across both choirs, across ECMC and Choral Chameleon, a unified team. And we're calling the team Equilibrium, and the idea is that they are the barometer for blind spot accountability for me. They meet completely confidentially. I'm not part of their meetings. And the team is comprised predominantly of a diverse cross-section of people from both choirs, male, female and non-binary, identifying of multiple racial profiles and age groups. And they are the ones who have the authority to come to me and say, you know, this is maybe not a good idea or here's something you may not be considering or, you know, even so far as to say the program doesn't have enough music, by POC, or there's no women represented here or or what have you. But I mean, I think that has become, to me, not a problem to solve, but an opportunity for learning.
Giacomo [00:23:05] I love that and the reason the reason I ask is because, I mean, obviously because of the importance of sort of leaning into action and knowing whether you were making a difference or not and how we keep ourselves accountable. But I love what you said about it taking a village. And the three of us have had conversations in the past about how, you know, the work we do as sister groups on opposite coasts is pretty political, right? On the West Coast, you've got GGMC and you've got IOC. And clearly those are mirrored by both of your groups in some ways with Choral Chameleon and ECMC.
Vince [00:23:32] Absolutely. And I'm proud to tell the world that. I'm proud to say that to the world and be in your company.
Giacomo [00:23:40] Same. And we've talked about the idea of creating the sort of Voltron (for you 80s kids out there) a Voltron, of choral groups focused on new music, but focused on this mission because, you know, think globally, act locally. And kind of knitting together a community is one of the reasons we're doing this podcast. I wanted to ask you, what are your thoughts on how to do that and how can we bring more like minded folk closer together?
Vince [00:24:07] Well, I mean, frankly, I think you're doing it with this podcast, number one. I think talking opens doors. What does the Human Rights Campaign say? Talking opens doors. The first thing is to talk about it and to not be afraid to talk about it, not be afraid to have people disagree with you and start that conversation. I think that things aren't real in the world until we're talking about them. When I started Choral Chameleon, the very first thing I did was I spent almost two years before even forming the group, going out to lunches and coffees and dinners with people and just talking about it—people who had mentored me—to make it become a reality before I even formed it into what it into what it was. So that's why I'm so excited about what you're doing here. I think that it's the most important move. You guys have made the critical move. And I want to continue to be a part of it as much as I can.
Giacomo [00:25:17] We're excited for that, too. And I think in a moment of self reflection for for us, one of the things that we think about a lot is, you know, look, we're three white dudes talking about the three CIS male white dudes. We know that folks are missing from the conversation. Right. Like, how do we think about making it more like you sort of speak a little bit about this, which is like just just talk to people. But there's the idea of the first thought and the second thought. And I'm interested in your thoughts about how to do this. Right. Like your first thought is just what is your impulse, your knee jerk reaction, for example, you know, we're reaching out to folks and sort of trying to think about how we make the guest list and the people that we talk to as diverse as we can. And the first stumbling block is like, oh, well, you know, we’re just talking to the people we know. And, you know, we don't really know people who are X or Y, right? That's a first thought. And that's bullshit. Right. Like because we know that you're capable of having a second thought.
Vince [00:26:13] Well, we have to call it bullshit and make the bullshit real. Like, that's B.S. And it's not a judgment. It's accountability. Right. By the way, I would just throw in here really quick, Giacomo and Zane, I would say that we have and I saw this on the Internet the other day and I agree with it. We have conflated the term cancel culture with accountability. The two things are not the same.
Giacomo [00:26:42] No, they are not.
Vince [00:26:43] Not the same thing at all. So yes. And I know where you're going with this. And let me just say that I can only speak as a White CIS gay man, and I do not claim the experience. I do not claim the experience of any marginalized group except that of the LGBTQ community, of which I am a part. And I and I do have to say that I'm committed to two things. Number one, as a human being, first. Before being a choir director, a musician, a composer, anything else. As a human being first, I am committed to learning from those who are generous and willing enough to teach me from their own experience to build empathy. And I'm committed wholeheartedly to leveraging my male white privilege. You bring people in off the margins and give voice to the voiceless and put people in the limelight who have been disproportionately disenfranchised.
Giacomo [00:27:57] Speaking of just being a human being, like, I think it reminds me of an anecdote, which was when I when I was five years old, I grew up in Richmond Hill, Queens. So like in the 80s, so a very different time. And when I was that young, I had no problem, like I was just alone at home. And so when I wanted to make new friends, I rode my bike up and I saw there was a family of new kids. And I just was like, Hi, I'm Giacomo. I want to make a new friend. And somehow, as I've gotten older, I feel like that that's gotten harder, but that feels like it's at the root of a lot of this, which is like if you don't have the friends, make the new friends, or authentically try to approach the ability to, like, find the relationships if they're missing. What's an example for you of a time when you have done something like that or reached out to someone where you're like, you know what, maybe I need to learn a new thing or I need to understand something that I don't.
Vince [00:28:43] Well, when I was living in San Francisco. I had an extraordinary experience I had when I started college, I was... College was not great. My very first college teachers in music, which were not by the San Francisco Conservatory, they were another school that I started off at. And they told me flat out that I would never go anywhere, that I should find another career. That I was a terrible pianist. My piano teacher told me I played piano as boring as the way I dress, literally. That's what it said to me, that I should find another career. And I believed them. I was actually going to come back to San Francisco and go to mortuary school and become a funeral director. And it was Conrad Susa and David Conte who plucked me out of that and said to me, "come here. We're going to take care of this," and they saved me. So when I came back to San Francisco, I had lost my church job, I'd given up my church job when I moved away to go to this other school, which I thought was going to be permanent. But it wasn't. It ended up only being one semester. So it turned out that my best friend's neighbor had a job opening at his church and said, Do you play the organ? Well, you know, why don't you come try it out with us? And it turned out that the church was New Providence Baptist Church over in the Ingleside neighborhood in San Francisco. And this was a, you know, one hundred percent black, American Black Baptist Church and I was the only white person there. I spent a year playing, Hammond B3 organ, helping brother Nate Branch on the piano lead the players, and they had five or six different choirs there. And there was no sheet music, no charts, no chord changes, nothing. And he would just call the key out and start playing, and it was swim or drown. That was it. And that was a little bit of what it was like with Joe Jennings as well. I mean, it was a lot of him looking at me and saying figure it out.
Zane [00:31:17] Sink or swim.
Vince [00:31:17] Yeah, figure it out. So that gave me the opportunity to confront within myself a lot of the insecurities that I had, a lot of the behaviors and reactions that I learned in my childhood, the behaviors that I learned, because we have to remember, we're not born with the fear of other people for any reason in us. It's a learned behavior and we have a choice always. And one of the presidents of the former presidents of Choral Chameleon, a very, very strong woman who I love and who I'm greatly indebted to. She said to me, In everything you do, you only have two choices. One is love and the other is fear. That's it. Period. And so what I was really moved by was how the people in this community at New Providence embraced, I mean, really embraced me in a familial way. Looking for me, you know, putting their arms around me, hugging me, kissing me, praying with me, you know, taking me under their wing, giving me their advice, not holding back at all. And I thought. That's what you call not returning evil for evil.
Giacomo [00:32:51] I have to wonder if that is at least I mean, like kind of to step sideways into talking about some of the compositions that you've worked with, Choral Chameleon works. You have a composer in residence program. You also have a summer program for composers, which is amazing. And one of the folks you worked with was a woman named Dale Trumbore. I don't know if I'm pronouncing Trumbore right.
Vince [00:33:11] Yeah.
Giacomo [00:33:11] Dale Trumbore. And there's a piece she wrote called "What Are We Becoming?" Which is a piece for choir and organ. And I think for a lot of folks and I think maybe this is a thing that you might share for some people who have this kind of knee jerk reaction. In fact, Zane you thought about this. This was your first impression when you heard the piece and looked at it, which was, you know, you hear choral music with organ. It's like a knee-jerk reaction. You're just like it's very churchy. Right. And for lots of folks, that's a trigger. Right. Churches are where you find the organs. How do you struggle with the idea of sacred music with secular text? Is this just something that's completely new? Like what was your thought process in working with Dale on this piece?
Vince [00:33:58] So I, when I worked with composers in residence in either choir, ECMC or Choral Chameleon, I tend to give them a brief, you know, and I will tell them what I'm looking for specifically programmatically. It's a challenge that I give to them. It's not a free for all when we do the residency. Of course, it's a conversation, right? But it's this is the program that I'm presenting and this is what I need, something like this. Can you find texts that resonate, or if you need me to suggest I will, but I always leave it up to them first. And I had gone to Dale (we had wanted to work together for a while, for a long time), and she's now a very celebrated composer she's based in L.A., Los Angeles and, I said, I want to write a program of secular works requiring organ. And the program was called Deus Ex Machina, God out of the Machine from the machine in whatever way you wanted to take that. And the other piece on the program was Rex Eisenberg's Messias False and True, which had been commissioned by my teacher, Mark Shapiro here in New York originally and premiered by Cantori and then subsequently performed with his Cecilia Chorus of New York. And Rex is somebody that I met through those channels and met him in Paris, we were both studying in Paris. So Rex had already done this, kind of. I mean, it's a secular work, it's not a sacred work, but it talks in the narrative about messianic figures of different types through the ages, not just in the sacred realm, but in the secular realm, in both positive and negative influences on people. And so. I wanted Dale to write something that was for the other half of the program. And Dale has a rule, she works exclusively or almost exclusively with the texts of female writers, and she came back to me with this poem, "What are we becoming?" And my jaw was on the floor and I thought, oh, my god, this is this is it. Like she hit it right on the head immediately and then she wrote this this two part piece, this diptych, which is kind of like a question and answer, antecedent consequent type of thing, an up and a down. And if a choral piece could be a painting, like really experienced in the way that we work our eyes to a painting, that's what she did. It's a choral painting with two kind of lenses or angles to view it. And the piece begs us to look inside first.
Zane [00:37:19] Let's go ahead and hear some of Dale Trumbore's self-reflective piece, "What are we becoming?"
[00:37:48] [Music excerpt: "What are we becoming?" by Dale Trumbore Music description: A deep organ pedal intones somewhat ominously underneath an SATB choir who sings the ghostly text: “What is a balm | What is this place | We’ve been here before”]
Vince [00:39:43] I want choral music to be a mirror that shows the listener a picture of themselves. And when people see pictures of themselves, sometimes what they see and hear are not going to be things that they like. And sometimes they are going to be things that they like, but either way, there is function and value in that.
Zane [00:40:12] So there is another piece that you guys premiered by Yungfan Xu, I believe, and the piece is, I'm probably going to mispronounce this, but "Qing Yi."
Vince [00:40:23] Yeah, "Qing Yi," yeah.
Zane [00:40:25] Yeah. And just for our listeners, just a quick explanation, so the Qing Yi are the primadonnas or the leading ladies of Chinese traditional opera, and their roles showcase colorful female characters from diverse backgrounds. They could be rich, poor, young, middle age, whatever. But the hallmark of the singing of that particular character is this, like, really piercing, vocal quality, these kind of high pitched nasally tones. And so you just made this reference to the fact that you have the singers do gestures and things to help get the sound into their body. So what did it take to get that sound from your singers? Because I've had this experience too. IOC has done, we did a whole program of Chinese and Chinese American composers. We've done other pieces from different parts of the world where the singing style is not what we consider that, you know, precious Western classical style of singing. And getting the singers to really embrace that and to produce that sound in a convincing and in a really like, you know, moving way is difficult. And so I wonder if you can share with us, you know, how that worked out for you and what your tactics were.
Vince [00:41:34] So that was done during the Institute. Yungfan was a student at our institute. She's here in New York now studying at Juilliard, which I am thrilled about having her closer to me here. So that piece was prepared and learned, and what you hear and see on the recording on YouTube was done in a grand total of maybe I don't know, two to three hours of rehearsal.
Zane [00:42:13] Wow.
Vince [00:42:15] Now, part of that was that the soloist, Annie, who is one of our singers in the ensemble in Choral Chameleon, she got on the phone with Yungfan's mom, who is an expert in this and had a long conversation with her over the phone about how to do this as a soloist. And it's apparently something that apparently even native speakers of Mandarin, Cantonese or Progenies have trouble with because the vowel sounds in the singing are not even akin to the spoken version of language in some ways. It's also very heavy on the voice. I would classify it as an extended technique. You know, even though it may not technically be an extended technique, I would classify it as something that requires more exertion and depth and, yeah, I think that the thing that I love about that piece is that it's a narrative piece that tells a story. So, again, you know, we're getting taken to the Chinese Opera, you know? Let's go.
Zane [00:43:39] So let's hear some of those primadonnas at the Chinese opera in Yangfan Qu's piece, performed by Choral Chameleon during the 2018 Summer Institute.
[00:43:50] [Music Excerpt: “Qing Yi 青衣'” by Yangfan Xu, performed by Choral Chameleon Ensemble, Nathan Plante, trumpet. Music description: The piece opens with a cappella singing in the piercing vocal quality of a very high-pitched, nasal tone, with hollow percussive instrumental thumps, followed by a trumpet soloist similarly echoing the high-pitched nasal whine. The text is excerpted from“Xing Lu” (On the Way) from “Sui Jie”— “Su San is a prostitute in the Ming Dynasty accused of murder and sentenced to prison. Her lover Wang believes fiercely in her innocence and finally helps to exonerate her before the judge. Once free, she roams the streets, telling her story to anyone who will listen.”]
Vince [00:46:31] Here's the thing, when she started the piece in the institute, the way that it works is that she came with a draft or parts of something, and then we saw the piece develop in front of our eyes. So it wasn't like we didn't know the piece at all by the time we started to actually rehearse it in earnest to record it and perform it. We'd seen it change and develop, and it had been done in consultation with the singers in the group. So the piece got workshopped essentially. And Yangfan was under the guidance of one of our composition teachers during that time, and we were with her every step of the way, which allowed her this safe space to take risks and do things like that without having to worry about it. And I think that's the magic of the Institute, is that it's a safe space, free of judgment. You can write whatever you want and it's either going to work or it's not going to work, right? But you're not going to get your ass handed to you the way you would in a school in front of people. You're not going to get humiliated and embarrassed because that is not an effective teaching method.
Giacomo [00:47:54] So speaking of speaking of teaching, I want to shift gears a little bit again into an initiative that you have launched, I think yet another thing, because you are one of the most prolific people, Jesus, of course, you have time to watch TV. Well, you've launched a new initiative called Greenhouse Music. And tell us a little bit about this new school that you're launching, because I think what you just said about needing that safe space and a way for people to learn that doesn't feel judgmental feels so important. Is that where Greenhouse Music came from?
Zane [00:48:31] And was it a natural extension from the institute?
Vince [00:48:36] So I feel like, you know, the Choral Chameleon Institute is really about evolving choral music and choral musicians. Choral composers and conductors typically.
Zane [00:48:49] And can you give our audience just a quick rundown of what the institute is exactly?
Vince [00:48:54] The institute is an eight day intensive think tank that happens once or twice a year here in New York City. And usually there's anywhere from 12 to 14 composers who come from all over the world. We've had composers from five different continents over the last 10 years, and we'll usually have three or four conductors. And the composers get access to 16 fully paid professional singers as their lab choir for these eight days. And the choir reads every draft that the composer puts in. And gives direct feedback. No intermediary. So the singer is talking directly to the composer. This is what it feels like to sing this. This is what it feels like in my body to receive your work. And there's a great formula that I have sort of crafted for feedback so that even if somebody is not prone to teaching, you know? Not everybody is into teaching, you know what I mean? So it gives them a formula that they can juxtapose commendation with recommendation and say "here's something that's really good in front of me and I think that it'd be better if we tried this or let me show you." But there's never even the slightest hint of anger, of judgment, of frustration and that is a hard and fast rule. And they know, everybody knows that that kind of stuff is not tolerated in that area. So it's a safe space.
Vince [00:50:34] So what's happening is it's eight days. Some of them come with a draft, some of them come with nothing. You know, and they get composition lessons every day, for the eight days. And they're writing. And we offer a few masterclasses just to stimulate thinking on different topics, and they're taking intensive ear training course work in the traditional French conservatory style every day. So it's an eight day intensive experience and you really can't schedule other things during that time. The choir comes in three days in, and then they come in five days in, and then they're in seven and eight days in. So the composer will make the first draft and it might be four bars, or it might be what they think is a finished piece, right. The choir reads it, they go back, they do a revision. Choir comes back and reads that again. They go back to do another revision. Choir comes back and reads that again. So it's really like nothing else. I mean, the experience is not like anything else out there, and it's made it a very important thing.
Vince [00:51:54] Now, as I have gotten into this, we've been doing this for 10 years and 13 years of Choral Chameleon next year. As I get older and I'm going to be turning 40 this year, I think about, OK, now what? Am I going to do this, is this the only thing I'm going to do for the rest of my life? And I think that I've been really moved by all of the movement that's happening around me in the world, around leveling the playing field, around flipping the script, knocking down barriers to access for as many people as possible. Again, I'm doing what I've always done, which is trying to find a gap to fill, trying to find a need to fill. And that's what Greenhouse Music is about. It's about providing a world class conservatory level curriculum, education in the techniques of music, the same kind of thing that you would get at a major school, any major school in the US. But at a significantly lower cost or for free, without the traditional structure of auditions and juries and numerical grading and judgments in that way, and with more flexibility for people who are also trying to live their lives and work jobs and hold down the rent, pay the rent. And I mean, because the way that the training works now historically is not conducive. Music has always been somewhat of an elitist, highbrow thing for people with money, and I had one too many students of color say to me, "Oh, I'll never get there. I'll never do that. That's not in the cards for me." I just I, I, I've had enough of hearing students say, you know, that can't ever happen for me. And I just, no, no, the answer is no, we have to fix this, so that's what Greenhouse is about.
Giacomo [00:54:19] So this is I mean, it's a relatively new program, and so you're probably at the stage where you're like sort of looking for traction right now. What's your first milestone? When's the first moment that you'll feel like, yes, this is going the way I want? What are you looking forward to kind of for that feedback to come back to you?
Vince [00:54:40] So we're going to run our first trimester, our first 12 weeks of classes starting on April 10th. And it's small class sizes, so the numbers are not terribly difficult to fill. The cost of the class at face value is about half of what the leading online music school in the country charges for a similar course. But of course, we believe the quality is much better. I think that when I just begin to hear an echo of the conversation happening around, among people, when we begin to have people questions, when we begin to have people dig into what we're doing and and question and really look at it and then talk about it. That will be sufficient for me to know that there's a dialog going around it and that, again, talking is what changes things. And also, you know, I live for those moments in my students' eyes when they realize something actually is possible for them that they thought wasn't possible for them. And they have an aha moment. And I really hear something unfold or come out of them that I knew was in there, but that it took a lot of coaxing to get it out of them. That's it. That's my reason for getting out of bed in the morning.
Giacomo [00:56:29] I love that you think about it very much from the perspective of like there's a need, there's a problem to solve here, there's something wrong about this that is just frustrating you. And to that end, you have also started a publishing company called Personage Press. Why? What problem were you solving?
Vince [00:56:48] So Choral Chameleon was sitting on 180 world premieres, 180 either world or US premieres or New York premieres, and there's such a wealth of music in there that is not being shared with the public, and although I believe that the publishing industry is changing and it's, I don't know, I don't have a crystal ball, I don't know where it's going, I think that the free exchange of ideas is on the horizon more than anything else. But we wanted to be able to say, if you write an excellent piece and you apply yourself during the institute, for example, there's an opportunity to get it published and shared with people. And there's a branding scheme around this that is reflective of this urban kind of vibe and this forward looking metropolitan worldly view with a lot of different types of people present in it. And so Personage is really about people. It's about composers getting into a dialog. Again, there it is, talking opens doors, right? Into dialog with people. It's about rejecting the commonly accepted, lamentably accepted procedure of letting huge corporations tell us what to program and what level something is and what the worth is letting them hold a monopoly on programming and continuing as we have done. The sin of the ages in music is suppressing the voices of the living composers and not realizing what we missed out on until long after. And so, you know, I just won't stand for it. I just, I couldn't and you know, people refer to me as an entrepreneur, and I think in a way, I am a music entrepreneur, but I don't see it that way. I really see myself as a human being who's observing things around me and just proposing solutions.
Zane [00:59:33] Yeah. Well, speaking of music, that's that serves a purpose, you know, that doesn't just exist for art's sake, maybe we can pivot a little bit and talk about Choral Chameleon's performances for the 2020 and 2021 season of Taste and Woven. Fascinating. So, so cool. I shared that actually that video that you made with my board almost immediately upon coming across it because I was like, hey, let's talk about this. So can you tell us a little bit about Taste and Woven and maybe a little bit about where the idea came from?
Vince [01:00:06] So Choral Chameleon is known for creating intimate experiences with the audience. We like having our audience be a small group of people. We don't place value on having big sold out crowds of hundreds or thousands of people. That's not what makes us feel good. What makes us feel good is connecting with our audience. And of course, that's the very thing that's taken away by this pandemic. And so we began to think about what is a way that we can actually physically be in somebody's home with them, with the music, so that the experience of the music is multidimensional, just as the music itself is multidimensional. And so I went to my friends, the taste curators, Abbey Cook and Lish Steiling, and they have a little company that they've started here in New York. It's a wonderful thing. What they do is they teach instinct to people. Going on a restaurant tour; developing a new product that is something that is going to improve your home life somehow, that you're not that you don't even know you needed. And I said, well, what if we revisited our taste concert from many years ago? Lish had designed these one bite wonders. And the advantage of doing it in person then was that it was a composed bite, one bite, and the audience put it in their mouth on cue at a specific moment in the piece. So they had this like three dimensional, four dimensional experience of that chord or that harmony or whatever. And it was mind blowing. And again, it was like one of these things where I was like, OK, I'm riding the two wheel bike, right? Either this thing's going to crash and burn and nobody's going to get it and be like, "this is stupid." Or they're going to be mind blown. Right. And fortunately, it was the latter. But I was ready for it to fail. I was ready for it to fail. Not that I believed it was going to fail, but I was ready and I was not afraid of it.
Vince [01:02:21] So I went back to Lish and I said, let's make a whole meal. Right, not just tasting, but like let's do a four course meal and I will do a vignette of music for each course. So we'll do an appetizer and a drink, a cocktail, and then we'll do a main course. We'll do a play on a fruit and cheese course, and then we'll do a dessert and we'll tell a story through food and music. And so we got the idea that Lish would make instructional videos, just like you would see on the food channel, you know, whatever. And she would demonstrate how to do these things at home. We send them nice little menus and shopping lists and so people can make this stuff at home easily and they can eat it together with their family, the people they're quarantining with, while they're listening to the music. And so the music got released at a certain time, and we would all jump on Zoom together and sip the cocktail together, listen to the music live together in HIFI audio, and do this as a subscription. So we're three courses in, we have one more course coming out and yeah, I mean, it's going to be a wonderful thing. On Patreon now we have, I don't know, 120 patrons or something who are following us and who are paying every month into the till for this. And so then we're not only giving them that, that's our ensemble, our 12 voice group of people who are the core of the choir and then the full chorus, which has about 50 and I might add, 45 or 52 or so regular members stayed with us consistently through the entire pandemic. There's been no attrition beyond that, which I think is really good.
Giacomo [01:04:28] And frankly, it's a testament probably to the organization and to you. Just to put a little spiff there for ya.
Vince [01:04:34] Well, you're hired. Thank you so much.
All [01:04:37] [laughing]
Vince [01:04:38] So I thought. Well, you know. Am I going to make some kind of hokey comment about we're united, we're together, it's sort of like the way I feel about patriotism just a little. I feel awkward about it, but I want to do it. But I don't know how and how it resonates with me. But the Woven concert came from Abbey, Lish's wife. Abbey is an internationally known and highly versed textile expert. And I said, well, what if what if there were an artifact like a rug or a tapestry or something that's handwoven and the threads in it represent us as humans who are far away from each other all over the world, different colors, different textures, different backgrounds. But we are woven, intrinsically woven together, and we tell a choral music story about social justice. And at the end of this, we show the journey of this thing being made by all women-owned businesses all the way from the mountains of Colombia, all the way to the distribution. These are being made as we speak, and they're going to be sent to the subscribers. So when they have the last episode, they will be able to see, touch, feel this thing and hang it on their wall, put it in their home, whatever it is. And every time they look at it, they're going to think about how we got through this together. Every time.
Giacomo [01:06:23] I love that, it's like it's like who was it, Michael Tilson Thomas, I think, or somebody who said something like, the music actually starts when the last note ends. And it's very much that, that this experience kind of continues after. I think it's really beautiful.
Zane [01:06:39] So how can, is there still room for people to subscribe and to get involved with the Taste and Woven project? And if so, how can our listeners find out more and sign up?
Vince [01:06:49] You can either go to the Choral Chameleon Patreon site or go to the Choral Chameleon website and that will connect to the Patreon. Choralchameleon.com, or just search for Choral Chameleon on Patreon and you'll find it. I would also add that Empire City Men's Chorus is running a very successful Patreon this year as well with a lot of extremely wonderful music. I have to say this, we did a recording of my arrangement of "Fragile" by Sting, which is a very jazz oriented arrangement. It turned out that Sting heard it. And he wrote us a note and said how moved he was by it. And I was like, fangirling... I was freaking the fuck out. I was like, did I just get a note from Sting?! What?!
Giacomo [01:07:44] You sure did.
Vince [01:07:48] But I don't want to make music that is going to do anything in the world.
Giacomo [01:07:54] Vince, in our last few minutes, anything else you'd like to plug or anything that some parting words, anything that's going on? Maybe where we can find you online?
Vince [01:08:03] Yeah, my website, personagepress.com; greenhousemusic.us; choralchameleon.com; empirecitymenschorus.org. And we're around. And again, what we want to do is be helpful. We want to be pleasant. And we want to help continue to sustain and illuminate the pathway forward for this thing that we all love, which is which is choral music. I would say to the listeners with all my heart that what's happening to us in the world right now and but also specifically to us in choral music, is that we're simply in a cocoon and we've gone into the cocoon forcibly. Obviously, we haven't had a choice, but the only thing that can happen in a cocoon is metamorphosis. And we are in that cocoon right now. But providence like that of this wonderful new podcast, that of the spirit of choral musicians, the great human instrument, the choir, the instrument made of people, is the embodiment of providence in the world. And as the Mexican proverb says: "They tried to bury us. They didn't know we were seeds." So, my brothers, just thank you for what you're doing and thank you to all of you who are listening and just know that your two choices are love and fear. That's it. That's all you get. And you decide at every juncture which one to move from.
Giacomo [01:09:54] Well, back at you Vince, we love you, too. And thank you so much for being a part of this today.
Zane [01:10:01] Well, what better way to end an episode than with a little Sting? Here's Choral Chameleon performing Vince Peterson's jazz arrangement of "Fragile."
[01:13:25] [Music Excerpt: “Fragile” by Sting, arranged by Vince Peterson, performed by Choral Chameleon. Music description: A jazz piano plays the Sting tune, with the choir singing alternating in solos and group singing the text: “On and on the rain will fall Like tears from a star like tears from a star On and on the rain will say How fragile we are how fragile we are” until the singing fades out completely]
Outro [01:13:25] Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the In Unison podcast. If you've got ideas for our podcast, please send us a message at ideas@inunisonpodcast.com. And who knows, maybe Chorus Dolores will ask us to talk about it during announcements. In Unison is sustained, nourished, and fostered by you, our loyal and loving listeners. And don't forget to subscribe to In Unison on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. You can find us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @inunisonpod. And hey, if you like what you heard, tell a friend or a section mate. Thanks again for tuning in. See you soon.
Chorus Dolores [01:14:04] New chorus performance folders furnished by Chorus Dolores, who wonders how 50 folders just magically disappear every year.
Credits [01:14:19] In Unison is produced and recorded by Mission: Orange Studios. Our theme music is Mr. Puffy, written by Avi Bortnick, arranged by Paul Kim, and performed by the Danish vocal jazz ensemble Dynamic on their debut album, This Is Dynamic. Special thanks to Paul Kim for permission. Be sure to check them out at dynamicjazz.dk.