By: Windy City Performing Arts. At: Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted
Despite snowfall attempting to ironically spoil its It Might As Well Be Spring! concert March 20, Windy City Performing Arts managed to briefly dupe its audience into believing there might actually be such a thing as spring in Chicago.
The concert was the third in WCPA's 2009-2010 "Seasons of Song" series, but it was the first for new artistic director Stephen C. Edwards, making the show an appropriate spring-like rebirth for both the Windy City Gay Chorus and the Aria women's ensemble. Both choirs were clearly on Edward's wavelength and appeared especially engaged in the music under his passionate and nuanced direction.
The concert set a spring tone right away without a note even being sung. The group's rich blue, green and yellow color palette in their outfit choices and stage decoration alone helped set the illusion of springtime that the singers' warm voices only enhanced.
The program for the two evening performances was diverse in genre, tempo and style, never giving the audience the chance to consider boredom for very long. The set began with part of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" and ended with a performance of Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" done in a style akin to the Fox TV show Glee, with a small rock-band accompaniment. The in-between included several songs inspired by poetry with spring imagery and selections from various musicals. No single genre was a noticeable strength or significant misstep for this well-trained ensemble. Edwards had them in impressive lyrical and dynamic unison. Only a group of professional and hard-working singers can harness sound on this level.
The first half of the set delivered the seriousness most choral groups are known for with exception of the men singing Eric Lane Barnes' "Lambscapes": seven memorable variations on "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in the style of different composers from George Handel's oratorios to Franz Schubert's art songs to gospel music. The second act was much more theatrical, campy and most certainly gay. After all, though Pride is in the summer, it goes without argument that no season is more inherently gay than spring. The men sang of pansies and brought their most eccentric hats for Irving Berlin's "Easter Parade." The women helped close the show with a fully choreographed spin on the 1979 Weather Girls classic, entitled "It's Raining Femmes."
The entire group on the whole sounded the best with the low male voices providing a powerful foundation upon which the rest of the group balanced with ease. At times, the women struggled with intonation in the high voices, which is anything but uncommon of women's ensembles, and a soloist or two had pitch issues, but the combined group sound was anchored so well that together the sounded great. The singers also seemed most enthusiastic about their music when all together.
Spring might be a fantasy in this city, but the diverse repertoire and enthusiasm of Windy City Performing Arts and its new A.D. helped all in attendance play make-believe, at least for an hour and a half on a miserably snowy day.
( Note: In the interest of full disclosure, Windy City Times theater critic Scott Morgan is a member of the Windy City Gay Chorus. )
