December 3, 2007 - Santa Barbara News-Press
Adelfos Ensemble calls out to ye faithful - New 10-voice men's choir shows considerable merit in concert

by Josef Woodard, News-Press Correspondent

Among other things, December 'tis the season for voices to rise and congregate in choral forces, reminding us of the healthy choral scene in the area. On Saturday nigh at St. Anthony's Seminary chapel, a young upstart on the local choral scene was demonstrating its impressive wares.

Launched in 2005, the Adelfos Ensemble is a 10-voice male choir of a high caliber, capable of taking on a range of repertoire. This weekend, it traversed a diverse but wholly accessible sweep of music. It lent a taut, seamlessly textured ensemble sound on pieces from the Renaissance through work by contemporary composers, spirituals -- "Sometimes I Feel like a Motherless Childe" and "Deep River" -- and the obligatory musical yule tidings.

In a sense, the ensemble began at the beginning, chronologically, with the Renaissance pieces by Josquin Desprez (1455-1521) and Jacob Gallus-Handl (1550-1591). Jumping ahead to the late 20th century, yet still with a strong thematic tether to "early music" influences, the Ensemble performed short works by the great Estonian composer Arvo Part and British "sacred minimalist" John Tavener.

Both composers have established strong international reputations by grafting modernist ideals with sonorities not entirely divorced from medieval traditions. Part's "Ikos," a brief and mesmerizing segment from his larger 1997 work "Kanon Pokajonen," was the most compelling piece on the program. Our musical appetites were whetted to get a larger portion of Part, especially in this accommodating, reverberant and spiritual space. For some reason, Part hasn't been performed much in Santa Barbara, a cultural lack deserving redress.

Tavener is another story, more easily digestible than Part in many ways, as heard in the Ensemble's lucid readings of "The Lord's Prayer" and "The Lamb."

Even in the Christmas music category, the Ensemble managed to veer away from just the obvious fare. While arrangements of "I Wonder As I Wander" and Michael Eglin's arrangement of "The First Noel" bore a faithful, Adam Phillips rewire of "Silent Night" was sufficiently unusual to make it an intriguing anomaly, and another concert highlight.

Closing the concert on a traditional note, with an audience-participatory run-through "Adeste Fideles" (aka "Come All Ye Faithful"), the Ensemble paid heed to the spirit of the season in a warm, no-nonsense way.

And yet what makes this group interesting is a willingness to move left and right of center in the choral tradition. Long may they congregate in song.