THE MEDLEY FEBRUARY 2015

Welcome back, Choristers! I hope that your holidayswere wonderful and that winter doldrums haven’t gottenyou down. This issue of The Medley has a very specialarticle that I know all of you will want to peruse. Ourvery own director, Dr. Kinchen, kindly agreed to sitdown with me at Starbucks on a recent Saturday morningand let me“grill” him for information about his life. Ihope that you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyedwriting it.

I hope to make these types of articles a staple of TheMedley. While we all see each other for 2-1/2 hoursevery week, how much do we really know about eachother? One Chorister member suggested to me that I startwith our newest members so that we can all get to knowthem better. I think that’s a great idea! And since Ihappen to be one of those newest members, maybe I’ll askmyself some probing questions and let you know theanswers. Hey–that’s kind of like therapy, only free!

Dates to Remember:

Saturday, February 14When: 9 am - 3 pmWhat: Spring RetreatWhere: Loving Shepherd Lutheran

Friday, February 20When: 5 pmWhat: Fish FryWhere: Lakefront Brewery

1872 N. Commerce St.

Wednesday, April 15When: TBAWhat: Pre-concertWhere: St. John’s on the Lake 1840 N Prospect Ave.

Wednesday, April 22When: 6:30 pm (6 pm report)What: Dress RehearsalWhere: First United Methodist 7520 W. Lapham West Allis

Friday, April 24Saturday, April 25When: 7:30 pm (6 pm report)What: Concerts!Where: First United Methodist 7520 W. Lapham West Allis

Get to Know Your Director!

Interview of Dr. James B. KinchenSaturday, January 17, 2015

What was the role of music in your life growing up, either at home or at school?

James is the oldest of three children born in Jacksonville, Florida, to a Baptist minister father and a motherwho encouraged his interest in music at a very young age. James loved to draw as a preschooler and recalls thatmany of the pictures he sketched were of his church choir and the church musicians. When James was five yearsold, his family moved into a house that had an old piano. Although a third of the piano keys were stuck or didn’tsound, this did not stop the young boy from tinkering with the instrument and asking his mother to help himmake sense of it. While James and his siblings never lacked for food, clothing, or lots of love, unfortunately, therewas no money for piano lessons, so James, with the help of his mother and some old piano books he found,taught himself the rudiments of piano.

In seventh grade, James sang in his school chorus. Before rehearsal every day, he and his classmates wouldgather in a little practice room where James would plunk out the various choral parts on a piano. He also playedhymns in his church, and by the age of 14 James was already directing his church youth choir which consisted ofsome 40 singers, many of whom were older than he was!

At what point did you decide that music was what you wanted to do?If you weren’t involved in music, what would you be doing professionally?

Tenth grade was a turning point for James because he decided music would be his life. But it didn’t startout that way. Initially he thought he would like to be a lawyer and a politician, but towards the end of that schoolyear—during which he had a phenomenal All-State Choir experience and also had earned “Superior” ratings atDistrict and State competitions—something happened that changed the course of his life forever. One day Jamesand his friends were talking about what they were going to study in college when a friend asked, “Kinchen, you’regoing to major in music, aren’t you?” And that was it for James; he decided he would do something he loved andget paid for doing it! Probably a wise decision for a young man who was told by a District adjudicator that year,“There is gold in that voice of yours.”

What is your educational background?

After high school, James attended Jacksonville University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in musiceducation. After college, he taught for three years at Stanton High School, his alma mater in Jacksonville. Thiswas a time of great change in the country. After a number of court cases were decided concerning desegregationof public schools, including the Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Swann v.Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1970), school districts were compelled to desegregate, and Stanton HighSchool was among the schools that changed dramatically. Stanton, which had been a comprehensive college prepschool when James attended, was transformed into a vocational school. Among James’s challenges as a teacherat Stanton were teaching a socioeconomically challenged and transitional population (in a given school year, it wasnot unusual for him to have had 40-50 students enrolled in his homeroom, due to late adds and early withdrawals)and dealing with the “problem” kids from other parts of the district who were sent to Stanton. Besides, the schoolwas ill-equipped for its new vocational mission. The choir room was converted into a cosmetology lab and theauditorium had been partitioned off into several industrial arts shops!

Southern Illinois University at Carbondale was the next stop on James’s professional travels; it is here thathe earned his master’s degree in music education. About this time he also married his first wife, with whom hehad a son and daughter. His son, James III —who is the father of his only grandchild—lives in central Floridaand handles company-to-company collections for a major insurance company. His daughter, Shirletta, a historian,lives in Louisville and is a member of the faculty at the University of Louisville.

After earning his master’s degree, James taught at Southeastern Illinois College in Harrisburg; at HamptonUniversity in Virginia; and then at the Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. While teaching atWSSU, James was the beneficiary of a lawsuit asserting that the state of North Carolina was maintaining a dualsystem of higher education in which universities and colleges attended by mainly Black students had fewer facultywith advanced degrees. The resolution of that case made it possible for James to take leave from his teaching jobat Winston-Salem and pursue a doctorate at UNC-Greensboro. After receiving his Ed.D., James taught at WSSUuntil 1989, when he moved to UW-Parkside.

What brought you to the Milwaukee Choristers?

James came to the Milwaukee Choristers in 1993 after being encouraged to apply by a student who knewof the Music Director vacancy and urged him to apply. When James got in touch with Bill Diekhoff, who wasthen the conductor, to ask him about the opportunity, Bill was very helpful and spoke highly of the Choristers. James related an interesting story about the day of his audition for the Milwaukee Choristers. On that Sunday,James played two morning church services at 7:45 and 10:45 a.m., conducted his school choirs in a major concertthat afternoon, and then drove to Milwaukee to conduct the Choristers in Feller From Fortune and also brought apiece to teach the chorus! Needless to say, he got the job!

What other choirs do you direct?

At UW-Parkside, James conducts many choral groups: the University Chorale, a cross-campus choruscomprised of anywhere from 40-60 members depending on the semester; the Voices of Parkside, a chamberensemble which consists mostly of music majors who must audition for the group; the Master Singers, a campus

community choir; and the Vocal Jazz Ensemble. He is also on the music staff at his church, St. Paul BaptistChurch in Racine, where he plays piano and particularly enjoys the improvisatory nature of the music he performs.

Please tell me about your family.

St. Paul’s is also where James met Roslyn Coleman Kinchen, to whom he is currently married. Roslyn,who is an industrial engineer for S.C. Johnson, had recently moved to Racine to start work at Johnson and hadstarted to attend St. Paul’s. Roslyn approached James after a church service one day in 1998 after hearing thathe would be conducting at Carnegie Hall. The rest is history! He and Roslyn have three children: Alfred Jamal,a 15-year-old high school sophomore who played keyboard and assisted Pat Black on piano at our recentChristmas concert; Benjamin Patrick, who is 10 years old, plays piano and sings, and who was cast in the role ofGavroche in the Racine Theater Guild’s production of Les Miserables last spring; and six-year-old Jasmine Amaiawho is extremely verbal, has a knack for figuring things out, and—much like her father did when he was young--loves to draw.

What do you like to do besides music, e.g., what are some leisure activities you enjoy?

When he’s not working, James enjoys reading (in general, he tends to read more nonfiction) and goingto movies. Last summer Jamal and James read two books together: To Kill a Mockingbird and Their Eyes WereWatching God. Recent movies James has seen include the latest iteration of “Night at the Museum” and “Taken3.”

What are some of the most memorable concerts and/or musical pieces you’ve conducted?

James recalls that some of the most memorable concerts include a production of Mendelssohn’s Elijahhe conducted as a grad student when the Director of Choral Activities fell ill; a 1985 concert at Winston-SalemState celebrating the tricentennial of the births of Bach and Handel and the 400th anniversary of the birth ofHeinrich Schütz; his UW-Parkside Messiah performances; and the Carnegie Hall performances of the FauréRequiem in 2004 and the Vivaldi Gloria in 2006. One Milwaukee Chorister performance that stands out inJames’s memory is a 1999 performance in which the Choristers joined for a couple of numbers with the world-renowned King Singers in the Pabst Theater. There have also been some very memorable performances for theWisconsin Choral Directors Association State Conventions: in Eau Claire just ahead of a blizzard that paralyzedthe entire state, at Madison’s Lutheran Memorial Chapel accompanied on the grand organ there by the masterfulBruce Bengtson, and in Oshkosh where they opened the evening for the internationally celebrated BrazealDennard Chorale. There were also some memorable performances in Europe that he has conducted. One wasa concert by a small ensemble from the university at the Bavarian Music Academy. Others include the Choristers’performance in Salzburg Cathedral (where Mozart led music as a young man); a concert at a quite ordinary churchin Palma (Italy) where a capacity crowd waited to hear the Choristers sing, even though they were over an hourlate getting there; and for a Sunday morning Mass in St. Peter’s in the Vatican.

Another interesting memory James shared with me concerned a Chorister concert he conducted in theearly to mid-1990s at St. Monica’s Church in Whitefish Bay. Apparently, the lights went out mid-song, but theChoristers managed to finish the concert after someone found some candles to light!

What are your goals—both short-term and long-term—for the Choristers?

James wants to continue to do challenging, worthwhile musical literature with the chorus; to engage qualitymusic and appreciate that engagement; and to help all of us understand why the pieces we’re singing are soamazing! A longer-term goal is to have us grow musically and raise the level of musicianship in the group (thoughthat has happened to a remarkable degree during his tenure). When he first came onboard, people were admittedto the group without regard for their sight-singing ability (or lack thereof). He wants this growth in the choralart to continue even as the chorus functions so admirably as what the Germans call a “frei chor” (free choir), thatis, a choir that is totally freestanding and able to support itself without any institutional or government funds. Hereally admires the Choristers for their eight decades of self-sufficiency!

Do you have a favorite piece or type of music?

James does not favor one type of music (i.e., sacred vs. secular) over another nor does he intend topromote any particular religious belief system by virtue of the music he selects for our concerts. However, whenhe is putting together a program of music, he does want to present us and the audience with technicallychallenging, worthwhile musical literature, much more of which will be found in the body of sacred choral works. Another interesting insight he shared with me is that the body of sacred music is much larger than the body ofsecular music and that most composers throughout time—no matter their particular religious belief system--havebeen inspired by the sacred texts because these works contain the jewels of musical craftsmanship.

The process James utilizes when putting together a program of music for one of our concerts is a complexone, more so than I ever imagined! Musical programming is a creative, scholarly, organic process, and as such,it is rarely atomistic, i.e., a mere “check-off” list of songs to be sung. Rather, this holistic process requires theartistic judgment of an individual trained in, and familiar with, the extensive repertoire of choral works. Athematic thread runs through every musical program James assembles, and although we may sing a wide varietyof pieces, every composition James selects is meaningfully related to a coherent musical premise. Even the orderin which we sing the pieces and any musical interludes or pauses between the songs have been artisticallycontemplated by James! All of this meticulous planning means there is a unity to what we sing and what ouraudience hears.

What question should I have asked you that I wasn’t clever enough to ask?

After two+ hours of conversation, James agreed that we had covered all the bases!

And here’s a note we received from Eileen Freshley andher daughter, Suzanne, thanking those who caroled ather house:

Here’s an email from Chris Halverson(S1) that arrived on 12/17/14:

Dear Choristers,

It is my great pleasure to be your assistantconductor, and I extend my sincere thanksfor the generous gift card! It is a joy tobelong to this wonderful group and I wishall of you a restful, relaxing and joy-filledChristmas and New Year! See you soon!

Chris

And another email from our very own Pat Blackthat was received recently:

Dear Choristers and Chorister Board:

Happy New Year!! Hope you have enjoyed your break,even thought the weather has been less than stellar :)

In my humble opinion, our Christmas concert wasexcellent. Every aspect--the singing, conducting,instrumentals, musical selections--was a joy. I thoroughlyenjoyed (as always) working with you. What could bebetter than making music with friends?!

Thank you as well for the Christmas gift card. How kindof you! (trust me, I'll have no problem finding somewhereto use it, and it will extend the joy of the Christmasseason.... )

God's blessings on each of you. Looking forward to ourtime together this spring.

Patricia Black

Below is a lovely note received from Lynnae Ortiz (S1) and her husband Ismael lastOctober:

Did you know that Joanne Cunningham (A2) designs all thecostumes for plays at The Sunset Playhouse? Well, shedoes, and they’re terrific! Currently playing is “One FlewOver the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and according to Joanne, it’s oneof the finest productions she’s every had the pleasure ofworking on. Cuckoo’s Nest runs from January 22 throughFebruary 8. Tickets are available by calling the box office at262-782-4430 or online athttp://sa1.seatadvisor.com/sabo/servlets/EventSearch?pr

Goal Alignment Project

During the 2013-14 Chorister season, the Board of Directors undertook a project,the purpose of which was to determine if the members, the board, and theconductor had harmonious goals for our choir. Members of an ad hoc committeeinterviewed all 2013-14 Choristers who wished to participate, as well as theconductor, asking questions based on our organization’s Mission Statement:

The Milwaukee Choristers, Inc., seeks to provide for its members and thepublic a rich and diverse musical experience that is anchored in the best ofthe choral repertory, and aspires to a consistent level of performance thatrepresents the finest of the choral arts.

Many of the responses of those who were interviewed were found to havecommon themes; the committee looked at the frequency with which themes wereexpressed, as well as the details within responses. The committee also looked tosee if commonalities existed based on the section of the choir, length of choirmembership, and approximate age range of respondents.

Finally, the responses and resulting themes of the participating members werecompared to those of the conductor, as well as to the established practices of theBoard of Directors. Many topics were deemed to be in alignment, without need ofchange. Other topics were found to be in need of attention for the board and/orthe conductor. The committee’s findings went to the Board of Directors, who haveselected the following for this season’s focus:

1. Recruitment, especially male singers2. Ongoing assessment of the rich and diverse musical experience offered by

our organization3. Further develop the role of section leaders4. Improve stage presence of the chorus

If you are interested in additional information on the Goal Alignment Project,please ask one of the committee members: Jeanne Tyszka, Linda Ertel, Jeff Hosler,Toni King, and Sue Wing.

Samara Garden & Home Presents: Music in the age of Jane Austen

Enjoy the sights and sounds from the lives of Jane Austen and the characters in her novels. This series of four concertswill be performed on period instruments (harpsichord and pianoforte) in a Downton Abbey inspired house-concertsetting.

Concert II--Sunday, February 8th at 1:00 and 4:00

Music for a while--PurcellAgnus Dei (From the Mass in B Minor)--BachIris hence away (From Semele), Virgam virtutis (From Dixit Dominus), Ombra mai fu (Serse)--HandelTrennungslied, Warnung, Voi che sapete (Marriage of Figaro)--MozartLieder selections (Pre-1817)--SchubertTrevor Stephenson--Harpsichord and PianoforteSarah Leuwerke–Mezzo-Soprano

Concert III--Sunday, February 22nd at 1:00 and 4:00

Sonata for Viola da Gamba and Continuo--No 2 in D Major--BachSonata No. 2 in G Minor, Op 5, No. 2--BeethovenArias for voice and pianoforte/harpsichord--BachStefanie Jacob–Harpsichord and PianoforteScott Tisdel–Viola da GambaCornelia Beilke–Voice

Concert IV--Sunday, March 8th at 1:00 and 4:00

Sonata in G Major, K. 13--ScarlattiPiano Sonata in D Major, Op. 28 (Pastorale) mvts 2 & 3--BeethovenDuets for Alto & Soprano Cantat BWV9 'Es ist das Heil uns kommen her' & BWV99 'Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan--BachCornelia Beilke--Voice

Are you a Janeite? Do you love fine music? If your answer to eitherone of these questions is “Yes!”, then please consider coming outon a Sunday in February or March to hear our very own CorneliaBeilke (A1) perform in a concert series entitled “Music in the Age ofJane Austen.” This is a four-concert series, and Cornelia is singingon February 22 and March 8 at Samara Garden & Home, 5211 W.North Avenue, Wauwatosa.

Tickets are $25.00 per concert and are available atwww.brownpapertickets.com/profile/882127or by calling: 1-800-838-3006

Below are details on the three remaining concerts in the series.

PASSIVE FUNDRAISING

Here are two simple ways you can support the Choristers with very little effort:

SMILE and earn money for the Choristers. You can raise money for the Choristers every time you shop on Amazon. It's simple. Go tohttp://smile.amazon.com/ and sign in. Designate The Milwaukee Choristers, Inc. as yourcharity. It's the same as your Amazon account. Every time you make an Amazon Smilepurchase, 0.5% will be donated to the Choristers.

RECYCLE and earn money for the Choristers.Don't forget we also are registered at Cimco Resources (f/k/a Action Recyclers) at 5329W. State Street. When you drop off your metal recyclables, just say you'd like theMilwaukee Choristers to receive credit. To make it even easier for you, former ChoristerKaren Engelhardt has agreed to continue as our organizer. She will come to Retreat onFebruary 14 at break time with her van to collect items and deliver them to Cimco. Bringyour soda cans, soup cans, and any other small metal items you've been meaning to getout of the house. A complete list of accepted recyclable items is posted on the MembersOnly section of the website.

Ein Prosit!

Here, for all the new members (and all the other memberswho fake it and smile a lot) are the words and translation forour familiar “singing toast”!

*Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der gemutlichkeit!Ein Prosit, ein Prosit, der gemutlichkeit!Ein, zwei, drei, SUFFA!!

(A toast, a toast to fun, camaraderie, etc.1, 2, 3 DRINK UP!!)

*Note: Please have a beverage in hand before starting!

The Medley is the online newsletter of the Milwaukee Choristerswww.milwaukeechoristers.org

Chief Writer, Editor, Interviewer, Prankster, and Artistic Director:

 Mary Jo Malonethemalones@tds.net

ALL IDEAS, ARTICLES, JOKES AND SELF‐PROMOTIONALMATERIALS ENTHUSIASTICALLY CONSIDERED!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHORISTERS!

November

Anna Gerlach - 9

Justin Van Able – 9

Schweitzer, Allison – 26

December

Rachel Rueckert- 1

Joe Bonfiglio – 2

Cathy Nolan – 2

Kristine Gerbitz - 15

Jennifer Zastrow – 15

Mechelle King - 21

January

Mary Jo Malone -4

Keralyn Bolliger – 6

Penny Hargarten – 9

Kathy Keleher – 14

Lynnae Ortiz -14

Jean Grainger – 18

Deborah Bernhardt - 19

Marilyn Harrower -23

Chris Krzyston – 25

“Put candles in a cake, it’s a birthday cake. Put candlesin a pie, and somebody’s drunk in the kitchen."

Jim Gaffigan

“The best way to remember your wife's birthday is toforget it once."

E. Joseph Cossman

“Age is a number and mine is unlisted."

Anonymous