Ruralite Cafe: Published 11/28/02

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

Local talent to shine at holiday concert

Works by four local composers will take center stage as the 32-year-old ensemble offers its yearly yuletide cornucopia of carols, accompanied by piano and a woodwind ensemble composed of WCU music faculty members.

One of the four is James Dooley, WCU music professor emeritus and conductor of the community chorus since its inception 1970. Dooley has written new music for a favorite carol, "I Saw Three Ships," and the chorus will perform the traditional text to Dooley's melody.

The same is true of another familiar carol on the program, "The First Noel," which will feature well-known words sung to a melody composed by WCU music professor Bob Holquist.

A third new piece, "Tidings of the Season," was composed specifically for the chorus concert by Bruce Frazier, WCU's first recipient of the Carol Grotnes Belk endowed professorship in music. Frazier's piece includes text adapted from Matthew and Luke set to original music, Dooley said.

Rounding out the local contributions will be "The Night God Came to Earth," with words and music by Dorothy Ross of Balsam.

Ross, who taught music for some 40 years first at Miami (Florida) Conservatory and then at Miami-Dade Community College before retiring to Balsam, met Dooley after last year's Christmas concert and asked if he would be interested in hearing some of her compositions.

"It was when Dorothy walked on stage that it clicked in my mind that we could do a concert featuring works by local composers," said Dooley, who plans concerts a year in advance. "I had already asked Bruce to write a piece, and I'd spoken with Bob because I had been taken with his 'First Noel' when I heard it at one of the Madrigal Dinners. I realized I could add something and we could have a group of Jackson County composers."

Though Dooley has had a motet (a four-part composition for unaccompanied chorus), "Ave Verum," premiered at the Cathedral of St. Lawrence in Vienna, Austria, he said most of his original work has been arranging and composing for the community chorus.

In a similar vein, the majority of Holquist's compositions have been for WCU's annual Madrigal Dinners, Dooley said. Holquist, who is the 2000 North Carolina winner of the prestigious Lara Hoggard Award in choral music, is also in great demand as a bass soloist and guest conductor.

Frazier and Ross bring slightly more exotic backgrounds to this year's holiday show.

Prior to joining the WCU music faculty, Frazier lived in Los Angeles and was involved in the film and television industry. He's worked with country legends Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn and has received two Emmy nominations, one for his work on the popular television series "JAG." Frazier's work since arriving at Western a few year ago has been so outstanding that he received the music department's 2002 Excellence in Music Teaching Award, Dooley said.

Ross became a full-time Jackson County resident after Hurricane Andrew destroyed her Miami home, Dooley said.

"It was so devastated where she lived that the only way she could identify where her home had been was by the three legs of her grand piano sticking up from the rubble," Dooley said.

Ross, who had two original operettas staged while she was still in high school, attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., on a composition scholarship. Her distinguished career included a stint as music director for the CBS radio affiliate in Miami, being librarian and arranger for the Miami Philharmonic and being music critic for The Week magazine and occasionally for The Miami Herald. Ross composed the fanfare for Sigma Alpha Iota, an international music fraternity for women, and has also had experience translating musical notation into Braille.

The chorus set to perform Dec. 13 is the oldest community chorus in Western North Carolina, Dooley said, with some 90 members. He expects about 60 singers onstage for this year's holiday concert. The group performs several times a year and joins the WCU Concert Choir each year in performing a major choral work with full orchestra.

In addition to the four pieces by local composers, this year's program will include a set of carols arranged by Swedish composer Anders Ohrwald, a group of familiar tunes Dooley said were written in 1962 for the Swedish Radio Youth Chorus. The concert will also include a couple of Old English carols and a group of relatively recent pieces by John Rutter, Christopher Brown and Brian Holmes.

It all should make for an exciting and interesting concert.

"I try to make the Christmas program varied in terms of periods and styles," Dooley said. "I like to choose pieces that reflect the general flow of choral music today, and I try to choose something representative of our Southern heritage. This year we'll do 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,' which is an old shape note piece."

Given the care Dooley takes in planning these annual concerts, it's clear that Christmas music is of great interest to him.

"One of the things that's always fascinated me is how 'carol' has become so broadly generic - and rightly so," Dooley said. "I like to have enough pieces to reflect that diversity."

And thanks to his painstaking song selection and amazing choral conducting skills (I can say that because I was once a member of a Dooley-led chorus), those who attend this year's concert are sure to experience both a rich musical tapestry and masterful holiday performance.

Back to Archive: 11/28/02.