Wow. We here at Seraphic Fire were not expecting anything like the attention we have been receiving for our Monteverdi Vespers iTunes release!  We’ve been putting on high-quality, musically-thrilling performances for the past nine seasons, and have very much enjoyed the praise and support of our local audiences… we’ve even released 4 CDs on iTunes prior to this one.. and nothing has prepared us for this overnight blockbuster!

Tuesday morning, we were excited that Seraphic Fire was featured on the iTunes classical music page.  By the time we reached number 6 on the Classical music charts, we were practically jumping up and down!  To put our standing into perspective, number 5 was Yo-Yo Ma, and number 7 was the London Philharmonic Orchestra!  Thank you to everyone who helped make this recording possible, from Seraphic Fire musicians, staff, and board members, to the college students at Western Michigan University who put so much time into preparing for this landmark recording.

Here and here you can see a little bit of the “making of” of our Monteverdi recording.  From humble beginnings at the La Quinta Inn at the Chicago O’Hare airport.. who knew!

Also, Patrick Quigley, our Artistic Director, gave a substantial interview to NPR about this whole process.  Here is the link to the piece.

If you haven’t bought the iTunes recording, buy it here!

UPDATE: If you’d like to purchase a physical CD of the recording, please call our office at 305-285-9060 and we’ll be happy to get that for you.

The following is the concert order for the “It Is Well With My Soul” gospel concert at All Saints Episcopal Church on Saturday, June 12:

Sunny Side

Never Grow Old

I’ll Fly Away

Down to the River To Pray

Gloryland

The following is the concert order for the “It Is Well With My Soul” gospel concert at First United Methodist Church of Coral Gables on Friday, June 11:

Sunny Side

Never Grow Old

I’ll Fly Away

Down to the River To Pray

Gloryland

The following is the concert order for the “It Is Well With My Soul” gospel concert at St. Martha Catholic Church in Miami Shores on Thurssday, June 10:

Down to the River

Never Grow Old

Down to the River

Never Grow Old

• Personalize and send e-mails, faxes and letters to your County Commissioner, the Mayor and the County Manager. Click here for a Sample Arts Support Message
• Call key County officials and emphasize specifically how important County arts support is to you and to our community.Click here for a list of key county personnel and contact info
• Attend and register to speak at the two upcoming County Commission Budget Hearings where the County’s budget will be discussed and finalized for the coming year. Click here for a cultural fact sheet

It is essential to keep your message positive. Tell your story about the impact of the arts on your life, the economy (about $1 billion in annual local impact), jobs (some 22,000 local jobs) and our community’s families and children.

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Together, we can make a difference in fully restoring County support for the arts.

We started out the trip rehearsing for two days in my hotel suite at the La Quinta at the O’Hare Airport. I promise you, the room has never seen so much Italian Baroque music before. It was the O’Hare La Quinta Premiere of the Monteverdi Vespers.

Once we arrived in Kalamazoo, MI, our home for our recording sessions was the Holy Family Chapel. What an a-MAZING acoustic. Huge thanks to James Bass, our chorusmaster, for finding such a great room.

Peter Rutenberg, our producer, and Jamie Tagg, our recording engineer, loaded in enough recording equipment into that chapel to record the soundtrack for Jurassic Park. Here’s us with the full group recording.

Our continuo group consisted of Scott Jarrett and Karl Shrock on continuo organs, Phil Spray on the violone and Joel Spears on the lute and theorbo.

Here’s tenor Derek Chester recording one of his solos in the Vespers.

Seraphic Fire soprano Gabrielle Tinto marks her score while we take a break in recording.

It was VERY late after about 10 hours of recording when this picture was taken. We were SO CLOSE to having it all finished.

Around midnight of the second day of recording, we wrapped. Here’s James Bass, Peter Rutenberg and me beaming knowing that we got an awesome recording.

And a post-session toast finished the project.

The big (and probably obvious) difference between learning a work that is in the standard repertory and learning a work that was written for you is that, for the latter, there is no received wisdom in performing the piece — no colleagues who have performed it before, no recordings with which to agree or disagree, no list of errata in the score and parts….nada. You’re on your own here…

Fortunately, when working with Paul Crabtree (a great friend and the genius composer of “Sedebat Mater”), the last of the four (errors in parts/score) tend to be nonexistent, as he is a meticulous editor of his own work. This still leaves the fact that there is no roadmap of what to expect once you open the package of scores and parts from the composer.

In the case of “Sedebat Mater,” I received the full score and parts about two months ago. Initially, when I receive a new score, I try (as much as possible) to spend a considerable time reading through the score and hearing the music in my head. I prefer not to, initially, play through the music at the piano or listen to a MIDI-generated recording of the work. I find that this helps me get an overall concept of what the arc of the piece will eventually resemble.

After a few weeks of silent study and singing through all the parts without the aid of a piano, I begin to start to learn the work at the keyboard, figuring out the important harmonic landmarks in the piece. With new works, this can be challenging, as rhythms and counterpoint are often purposely at odds with traditional Western musical theory, so much of my time is spent trying to anticipate what will be difficult when actual live musicians are rehearsing/performing the piece.

Once I have a reasonably good handle on the harmonic structure, I take out my colored pencils (it’s like kindegarden!) and mark the hell out of the score. Everyone has a different shorthand when it comes to marking their scores — mine is mostly to overcome my astigmatism so that I don’t have to wear my glasses in rehearsal or performance. Big red, blue and green marks thoughout my score remind me of what I’ve been studying for the past few months so that I can just glance down and know what’s coming next.

Finally, once my preparation is mostly done, I’ll call up the composer (in this case Paul — EXPECT A CALL SOON!) and ask him or her what THEY really feel are the most imporant musical ideas to get across. I don’t really like to have this conversation until I’ve developed opinions of my own, based on the notes on the page.

So, yeah… A bit of insight on how a World Premiere goes from score to first rehearsal with Seraphic Fire.

-PDQ