BRATTLEBORO — “Thy Coming Morrow Will Be Clear and Bright,” is the theme of the Brattleboro Concert Choir’s next performance, Jan. 31 at 2 p.m. and Feb. 1, at 4 p.m., at the Latchis Theatre. The Concert Choir is the oldest performing ensemble of the Brattleboro Music Center.
“Usually, a concert program starts in one of two ways for me,” said Dr. Jonathan Harvey, the Concert Choir’s music director. “Either it begins with an idea that I then find music to fit, or, as in this case, it begins with a particular piece that I build a program around.
“The starting point for this concert,” he said, “was Marques L. A. Garrett’s 2022 piece, ‘My Heart Be Brave,’ a setting of a poem by early 20th-century poet and Civil Rights activist James Weldon Johnson, which speaks to the necessity of courage in the face of oppression, cruelty, and darkness.
“The poem was written by a Black man in the post-Reconstruction United States,” Harvey continued, “in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet. Garrett then takes that poem and effectively communicates ideas of fear and hope—it feels tailor-made for our moment in history.”
Harvey said that what resonates most strongly about the piece for him is the sense of hard-won hopefulness, so he built the program around that idea, around music that considers the future in that light.
“I think it’s important for a performance to be deeply informed both by the origins of the work and by the expectations and needs of an audience in today’s world,” he said. “Communicating those ideas to the performers is an ongoing process. I’m lucky to be able to work with the Concert Choir every week, so that we can gradually build the meaning together, both through musical technical devices and through discussions of meaning.
“Communicating those ideas to an audience is tougher because we have less time together,” he continued. “I write notes for the concert program to help illuminate the music, and I always speak from the stage during performances. But I also think that what the music means to me doesn’t necessarily need to align exactly with what the music means to the other musicians or to the audience. That ambiguity and flexibility is one of the reasons that music is so powerful.”
In addition to directing the Concert Choir, Harvey is music director of the Brattleboro Camerata. He is also Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choirs at Fitchburg State University.
Although Harvey enjoyed music all through elementary and secondary school, he didn’t set out to be a professional musician.
“It was only as an undergraduate student that I started believing people who told me that music-making was something I should consider pursuing as a career,” he said. “By the time I finished undergrad, I had been a teaching assistant for both orchestras and choirs. I had won the college’s concerto competition and played the ‘Concerto in F Minor for Bass Tuba and Orchestra’ by Ralph Vaughan Williams. And I was headed to grad school in conducting. My fate was sealed.”
Harvey has conducted all kinds of ensembles, but he finds the voice particularly interesting for two reasons.
“First, the voice can carry text, which adds an entirely different and fascinating expressive layer to vocal music,” he said. “Second, voice is the ultimate egalitarian musical opportunity—almost everyone can sing, and your instrument is always with you.”
According to the Brattleboro Music Center, more than 70 years ago, violinist and conductor Blanche Moyse envisioned a community chorus of local voices performing celebrated choral music. She directed the group for decades. Susan Dedell became the choir’s music director in 1989. Harvey succeeded her in 2018. He founded the Brattleboro Camerata in 2021.
“The difference between these two groups is primarily size and repertoire,” he said. “Concert Choir is a large group that sings music of many different styles, and has a tradition of high-quality performance of adventurous programs, often including new music. For example, in our next concert, we’ll be performing music in four languages, across 400 years, and about half the pieces are by living composers.
“Camerata, on the other hand, is a smaller group that specifically focuses on music from and inspired by the Renaissance era,” he said. “As a consequence, singers in Camerata need to be relatively strong sight-readers and must be comfortable holding their own part.”
That’s not to say, he added, that Concert Choir members can’t do that.
“Concert Choir is filled with tremendously accomplished musicians,” he said, “many of whom currently sing in Camerata or have done so in the past.”
The most complicated and important part of conducting an ensemble, Harvey said, is helping the singers grow in their understanding of the music.
“Some of this work is accomplished by the music itself,” he said. “The pitches, rhythms, and syllables allow singers to form their own personal relationship with a piece. I also provide singers with an extensive set of resources, including practice tracks, texts and translations, multiple recordings (if they exist), and contextual information about the composer and the piece.
“Then throughout the rehearsal process, many discussions of musical meaning take place,” he said, “whether in the form of brief one-on-one conversations, organized discussions, or written communication. So I try to help, but I don’t feel the need to control the musicians’s relationship with the music. It’s also an individual process for every singer.”
As a choral conductor, Harvey operates from three core values.
“I want the music to feel fresh and immediate, no matter when or where it was written,” he said. “I want the musicians to feel safe to make mistakes and take risks. And I want the shared humanity of all performers and audience members to be at the center of my musical decisions. I’m always trying to do better.”
While Harvey sees supporting local arts as an essential act of citizenship and communal interdependence, his more immediate goal for the audience at this concert is the experience of hope.
“Not a facile optimism,” he said. “A clear-eyed and hard-won sense that we as humans are capable of addressing the challenges that we face together. Cumulatively and individually, I hope the pieces on this concert help audience members process the challenges and complexities of our current moment.”
The Brattleboro Concert Choir, which is open to all singers, seeks new members twice a year, and especially invites BIPOC singers and singers of all gender identities. The spring session begins on February 04. Interested singers should, as soon as possible, contact the Brattleboro Music Center at (802) 257-4523 or at [email protected].
Both Brooks Memorial Library and Putney Public Library have two free passes to BMC concerts. Each pass allows two persons to attend a concert for free, with the requirement that tickets be reserved at BMC a week in advance.
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