Choirs face off in Super Bowl of church music
By Charles Cassady
Insights
WEB EXCLUSIVE
Published Feb. 7, 2007

After last weekend’s Super Bowl Sunday, Super Bowl Pre-show, Super Bowl Half-Time Show concerts, Super Bowl commercial breaks, post-Super Bowl commentary and Super Bowl-hangover Monday, how about a Sunday devoted to religion and spiritual contemplation? Hey, just a thought.

It will actually be Mozart vs. Charpentier in the faith playoffs on Feb. 11 at the Rocky River Presbyterian Church, at 21750 Detroit Rd., at 4 p.m. The match takes place as part of the church’s Artist Concert Series. The teams on the playing field, as it were, are an assortment of classical and sacred-music MVPs.

The Chancel Choir of Rocky River Presbyterian Church will be joined by its counterpart choir from the St. Colombo Cathedral in Youngstown. “The music director at St. Colombo [Dr. Daniel Laginya] has been my music teacher for a long time,” said Rocky River music director Virginia Roedig.

Still, the first time the two choral groups got together was just a few weeks ago, at an ecumenical retreat. Now, this weekend, they will huddle up together and separately to present two very different varieties of songs and music of praise.

The star of the concert is French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704), a popular of writer of sacred vocal music. His 24-minute “Te Deum,” to be performed in its entirety, is possibly his best-known work. Excerpts have been heard heralding European TV shows, and the prelude is a popular wedding march here, said Roedig.

“The piece itself is very stately and noble, and we’ve had to describe it as from the French nobility – right before they started chopping off the kings’ heads,” said Roedig.

In contrast to the “in your face” quality of “Te Deum,” said Roedig, is the religious music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). “We’re going to have a sort of contest between Mozart and his brand of glory to God. We’re doing some of his Motets, and they’re very soft and sensitive…the strings are also going to do a Divertimento by Mozart.”

Also participating in the concert, said Roedig, are the Amethyst String Quartet, as well as a special VIP guest from an eminent area Baroque ensemble. “The timpanist is from Apollo’s Fire, a guy named Matt Bassett. He has quite the quite the experience in this particular time period,” Roedig said.

Said Roedig, “It’s going to be a real treat.”

Admission to the Artists Concert Series shows are free to the public, but goodwill donations are gratefully accepted (imagine what a better world it would be if the NFL had a similar policy with the Super Bowl). For more information call the Rocky River Presbyterian Church at (44) 333-4888 or go online a www.riverpres.org.