ONLINE: Wisconsin Chamber Choir

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Joshua Schmidt

Wisconsin Chamber Choir members during the filming of a "Car Carols" segment.

In another brilliant pandemic innovation, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir is presenting socially distanced performances of holiday music and songs by African American composers. The singers will perform in their own cars, using wireless microphones, and the choir will hear each other to sing along by monitoring their car radios. The live segments will be interspersed with pre-recorded music by the choir. We get to listen (and watch) from the safety of our own homes; find the livestream on YouTube or Facebook.

press release: Join the Wisconsin Chamber Choir on Saturday, December 12, at 2:00 pm for Car Carols, a unique holiday concert featuring live, socially-distanced performances of music by African-American composers and seasonal favorites. Choir members will sing from their individual cars using wireless microphones, listening to the sound of the whole choir via their car radios. The audience is invited to join our Facebook event and/or listen in live on YouTube. There is no charge to view the live-stream, but donations would be welcome. 

This unusual concert format was necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, but the WCC is grateful for the opportunity to continue singing together in safe ways. Since September, the choir has been rehearsing as a Parking Lot Choir, generating local media coverage from WKOW and Madison Magazine, whose story was headlined “Forget tailgates, parking lots are for choir practice.”

This past September and October, smaller groups from the WCC assembled on Saturday mornings at the Warner Park Pavilion to rehearse in widely-spaced formations, wearing specially designed singers masks, and occasionally harmonizing with nearby sandhill cranes, who seemed unsure what to make of the a cappella music floating through their habitat. Recordings by five distinct small ensembles (minus the cranes) will be aired during the December 12 Car Carols broadcast, in addition to live singing by the Parking Lot choristers. 

The Car Carols repertoire highlights music by African-American composers spanning nearly a century.  Idiomatic pieces in the style of spirituals and contemporary gospel alternate with “non-idiomatic” motets and anthems by Nathaniel Dett, William Dawson, Undine Smith Moore, and Carlos Simon. The remainder of the Parking Lot Choir selections consists of carol arrangements by WCC favorites Stephen Paulus and Peter Bloesch, feature virtual harp and violin accompaniment. Live and virtual performers will also unite to sing Craig Hella Johnson’s moving arrangement of the songs I Love You and What a Wonderful World. 

Interspersed between the live Car Carols will be a wide variety of pre-recorded selections, including the world premiere of WCC member Linda Palmer’s arrangement of Sussex Carol, plus music by Johannes Brahms, John Rutter, 17th-century female composer Chiara Cozzolani, and Tleycantimo choquilia, a carol from colonial-era Mexico, sung in Spanish and Nahuatl. 

Founded in 1998, the Wisconsin Chamber Choir has established a reputation for excellence in the performance of oratorios by Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Brahms; a cappella works from various centuries; and world-premieres. Artistic Director Robert Gehrenbeck has been hailed by critics for his vibrant and emotionally compelling interpretations of a wide variety of choral masterworks. WCC members have acknowledged Gehrenbeck for his intrepid conducting in freezing temperatures during Parking Lot Choir rehearsals.