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A SUMMING UP Choral Composition Through Nine Decades

Introduction by Eliza Rubenstein and collecting friends, and I’m still struggling to keep
up with his wordplay and his gait. Not long ago, he and
Kirke Mechem and I first connected in the spring Julie and I went to another ballgame, and over hot dogs
of 2001, when I was twenty-six and he was seventy- I marveled once again at the gentle forces by which fan
five. I sent “the dean of American choral composers” a mail became friendship, and friendship modulated into
courteous e-mail through his official website to tell him something like family. He is as irresistible as anyone I’ve
how much my women’s chorus was enjoying rehearsing known in this life. First, I loved Kirke’s music, and then
his choral cycle “The Winged Joy,” and within a few I loved Kirke. I urge you to do the same, in whichever
hours, I’d received two replies—the first gracious and order you choose. This article is a good place to start.
professional, the second a P.S. to say that he’d learned
from Googling my bio that we shared a common inter- Eliza Rubenstein conducted the Carnegie Hall premiere of
est in baseball (Cardinals for me, Giants for him), and Kirke Mechem’s cantata Songs of the Slave in 2017. She is
he wondered if I’d like to attend a game with him in his determined that someday she will be able to play all the notes in
hometown of San Francisco later that summer. the mandolin arrangement of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”
That’s Kirke: curious, kind, joyously open-armed to he wrote for her.
every stranger who might become a friend. When we
did, indeed, go to a Giants game together that season, I
was starstruck. Now—twenty-three years, many visits, After a lifetime of writing for chorus, how can I sum
a handful of baseball games, and hundreds of e-mails it up in a way that will interest conductors and compos-
later—I’m full of gratitude for the musical and person- ers of a later generation? Although I have composed a
al relationship we’ve shared (a relationship that imme- great deal of chamber music, songs, symphonic music,
diately included his wonderful wife, Donata, and soon and five operas, choral music was my first love. I hope
welcomed my partner, Julie). I haven’t known many that my story might shed light on the way composers
people with so keen an ear, so piercing an intellect, so think, how we change (or do not change) over the years,
agile a wit, so expansive a grasp of history, so deep a how we deal with both success and failure, and how our
well of integrity, or so inexhaustible a capacity to be philosophical, personal values affect our music.
delighted by the world in all its color and chromaticism. “Why have you written so much choral music?” is a
But even if Kirke had never replied to my original question I hope to answer. “Who are your favorite liv-
e-mail, I’d still have returned to his music again and ing choral composers?” is a frequent question, but I do
again for its kaleidoscopic variety, crafty counterpoint, not answer it because there are so many fine composers
layered text-setting, and elegant lyricism. (“I really hope today that I would be sure to leave some of them out.
we haven’t forgotten how to write a melody,” he said to Likewise, “Which of your own pieces are your favor-
me with a smile during a reading session at a choral ites?” is too difficult to answer. You might as well ask
conference once. He’s one of my favorite conference me which of my children is my favorite. Still, here are
buddies, even if he claims to attend them chiefly “to a few favorites that I would like to see “discovered” or
surprise everyone who figures I must be dead by now.”) “resurrected”:
My college students, steeped in the fashionable choral “The Shepherd and His Love”; American Madrigals;
sonorities of the moment, have fallen just as hard for Five Centuries of Spring; Befana—A Christmas Fable; The
his music as they have for his charm; they revere him as Winged Joy (SSAA); Singing Is So Good a Thing; and “The
a genius but know him as “Grandpa Kirke.” He’s their Gift of Singing,” which is a kind of autobiography for
most lovable connection to the recent choral past, and all choral conductors and composers. Like many other
an enthusiastic, eloquent advocate for the pleasures— composers, I have gone through many stages: the “be-
timeless, if not always trendy—of good text set to a ginner” (1940s); the “up-and-coming” (1950s); the “es-
good tune. tablished” (1960s-1980s); the “veteran” (1990s-2000s);
As Kirke nears one hundred, he’s still creating art and finally (2010s-2020s), it seems that some benighted

44 CHORAL JOURNAL February 2024 Volume 64 Number 6