Masterworks 2024: Coronation

Performance notes

This concert featured the music from English, Austrian and French coronations throughout history, including the Coronation Mass in C by WA Mozart.

Previous Performance dates

• January 27, 2024 7PM - Anderson Hills Church, 7515 Forest Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45255
• January 28, 2024 4PM - Milford First United Methodist Church - 541 Main St, Milford, OH, 45150

Big House

Performance notes

This concert featured music promoting a community where everyone is welcome, with the title track Big House, in addition to musical selections like Thank You For Being a Friend, I'll Be There for You, All You Need is Love, and Home.

Previous Performance dates

• June 2, 2023 7PM - Milford First United Methodist Church - 541 Main St, Milford, OH, 45150
• June 3, 2023 7PM - Batavia Armory Town Hall - 65 N Second St, Batavia, OH 45103

Masterworks 2023: Illuminare

Performance notes

Illuminare is Elaine’s first extended work, consisting of five movements for SATB chorus and chamber orchestra. Using lesser-known sacred Latin, Greek, and English texts, the piece takes us through a season of beauty and goodness that has been disrupted by darkness and confusion. But as Light gradually returns, hope is restored, illuminating our future and guiding us in peace.

The Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo, Hob. XXII:7, is a mass in B-flat major by Joseph Haydn. The missa brevis (short mass) was written around 1774 for the order of the Barmherzige Brüder (Brothers Hospitallers) in Eisenstadt, whose patron saint was John of God. Scored modestly for soprano, four-part mixed choir, violins, organ and double bass, it is known as the Kleine Orgelmesse (Little Organ Mass) due to an extended organ solo in the Benedictus movement.

Previous Performance Dates

• January 22, 2023 7PM - Anderson Hills Church, 7515 Forest Rd, Cincinnati, OH 45255
• January 23, 2023 7PM - Milford First United Methodist Church - 541 Main St, Milford, OH, 45150

Change is Gonna Come

Performance notes:

It is no secret that the arts have always been a catalyst for change in our society. Music, in particular, has often expressed the feelings and beliefs of those who wish to see a positive change in the world, and how we live and move within that world. In “Change Is Gonna Come”, the Clermont Chorale presented music from that tradition: music meant to inspire us to bring about change.

We began with the anthem of change from 1965, originally performed by Sam Cooke, and the “title cut” of the concert. From there, we took a journey through our experiences as we recognized the problems that we face (Eleanor Rigby), how we confront ourselves in an effort to come to grips with the situation (Take Down These Walls, Hope), how we come together as a broader society to make a difference (Make Them Hear You) and finally some inspiration and encouragement to go out and make it happen (Meet Me Here). Truly, when the concert was over, you felt like you could Stand Up and Make a Change.  We encouraged our singers and our audience members to find something in the music of this concert that they could take with them when they left, and can put into action the changes they want to see in the world.

Previous performance dates and locations:

• Friday, June 3, 7:00pm @ Milford First United Methodist Church - 541 Main St, Milford, OH 45150
• Saturday, June 4, 7:00pm @ Loveland Presbyterian Church - 6796 Loveland-Miamiville Rd, Loveland, OH 45140

Our Winter 2020 Concert was "Masterworks:  Evensong".  This concert featured "Vespers solennes de confessore K339" by W. A. Mozart, with orchestra

Other works included: Elaine Hagenberg's "Music in the Night", Stephen Caracciolo's "Let My Prayer Rise Before You as Incense", Gwyneth Walker's "A Prayer of Compassion" and Eric Whitacre's "Sleep".

This concert was in collaboration with the the James Sauls Homeless Shelter in Batavia.  We encouraged our audience to bring new toiletry and/or cleaning products to the concert.  Cash donations were also welcome.

Unfortunately, the remainder of our 2020 season was responsibly cancelled due to the risks posed by COVID19.

The Clermont Chorale's Winter 2019 concert was "Music She Wrote (But You Didn't Hear)."

For over a thousand years, European and American cultural systems denied or discouraged women in pursuit of the education, experience, and exposure necessary to succeed as composers of sacred and secular music. Even today, music composed by women represents a minor fraction of programs heard in concert halls worldwide. Greater access to music education, practical experience and well-publicized performances of compositions by women must correct this imbalance. With this goal in mind, Clermont Chorale presented its Winter 2019 concert program: " Music She Wrote (But You Didn’t Hear)," a millennium of extraordinary
compositions by women.

Each “Music She Wrote” concert featured five women who achieved significant success in their chosen profession. These women presented a snippet of their story, highlighting challenges and achievements they encountered along the way.

Clermont Chorale's Spring concert was entitled "Tin Pan Alley: The Birthplace of American Popular Song."

In the early decades of America’s 1900s, a new form of popular music became such the rage that composers in the “Tin Pan Alley” area of NYC – West 28^thStreet between 5^thand 6^thAvenues – could write a song, throw it out the window to the anxious publishers waiting to grab it, and it would be heard later that day.

While this story may be a myth, there is no doubt that song writers – George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and even up to the 70s with Carole King – found audiences hungering for the new “melting pot” style of various musical influences: traditional African-American field songs that morphed into jazz, which then evolved over the decades into rock ‘n roll and today’s pop music.

This is a story of how popular American music developed from New York City’s “Tin Pan Alley,” and how that influence can still be seen today.

In February 2018, The Clermont Chorale presented their second Masterworks concert, featuring classics of American a cappella choral music by composers such as Karen Thomas, Joshua Shank, and René Clausen, plus French composer Fauré's Requiem, performed in Latin with orchestra.

Twelve members of the Chorale also traveled to France in June 2018 to perform Fauré's Requiem and Gounod's Requiem with four American choirs and a Children's Choir from Paris at Eglise de la Madeleine. Listen to the Fauré Requiem here and the Gounod Requiem here.

In the spring, Clermont Chorale presented "Stage & Screen," a musical celebration of opera, film, and Broadway, featuring classics of the genres – Summertime (Porgy and Bess), Va Pensiero (Nabucco), City of Stars (La La Land), Singin' in the Rain (Singin' in the Rain), Ballad of Sweeney Todd (Sweeney Todd) and Seasons of Love (Rent), to name a few.

Great poetry has always inspired great choral music. The Winter 2017 season "And the Poet Sings" explored the work of timeless poets as set to innovative music. Among the poets represented were Frost, Whitman, Shakespeare, Donne, and Tennyson, and the composers include Eric Whitacre, Gabriel Faure, Norman Dello Joio, Randall Thompson, and Alice Parker. This concert featured the world premiere of Donne's "Death Be Not Proud" set to the music of Clermont Chorale's own Co-Artistic Director Tim Carpenter!

The Clermont Chorale's Spring 2017 season, "The Great American Songbook," reached back into the amazing history of American popular song to find shining examples  from some of the greatest composers of all time... George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and others. We featured songs that have been part of our collective American consciousness, like "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," "God Bless America," and "Yesterday."  There were expressions of love, joy, patriotism, and celebrations of life, in music that we call our own.

The June 4 concert at St. Mark's also featured Cincinnati's up-and-coming jazz vocalist, Natalie Brady, who performed three pieces. She has performed at venues around town such as The Greenwich, Pappadeaux, and The Listing Loon, as well as for private events for companies such as Budweiser and Chase Bank.

Our Winter 2016 season, "Masterworks," was a haunting concert of sacred music, including three Renaissance motets by Schutz, Palestrina, and Phillips; Schubert's Mass in G; and "Achieved is the Glorious Work" from The Creation by Haydn.  Several pieces were performed a cappella and 2 with string orchestra.

Spring 2016 brought a return to old CFC favorites in "Heaven & Earth."

"In the Good Ol' Summertime" explored music from medieval times to today!

The theme was summer, and it was great to start rehearsals on this bright, sunny music during one of the coldest, iciest winters in recent memory.  A chorus of over 60 people came together to sing pieces such as the oldest written-down piece of music available, "Sumer is Icumin In," old-time favorites from the roarin' 20s, everyone's favorites, the Beach Boys, and much more.

January, 2013 featured Faith, Hope & Love.  Spring of 2013 we presented a program of Beatles arrangements in a wide variety of styles from a capella rock to madrigal.

In addition to performing this program at UC - Clermont College Kreuger Auditorium, we also performed as an opener for the May Festival, Summerfair at Coney Island, Miami Township's Summer Concert series, Milford's Frontier Days Festival, and the Promont House Art Affaire!

In the winter of 2013, amidst much snow & ice, we presented Benjamin Britten's "A Ceremony of Carols" and a program of other traditional and not-so-traditional British holiday carols. 

After a several-year hiatus, we started up again with A Concert of American Composers on April 27, 2012.  

Our second year found us performing with the Lebanon Symphony and Chorus in Lebanon, OH and the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and the Cincinnati Choral Society.

For our Holiday 2007 Concert, we also held a fundraiser, "Singing With Santa."  The fundraiser and concert were both great fun and very successful, featuring a "singing Santa," carolers and magician Jason Jacobs.

In 2006, we presented two concerts with the Clermont Philharmonic Orchestra.