In 1982, countertenor and Anglophile Richard Lowell Childress founded His Majestie’s Clerkes with the goal of performing Tudor repertoire in the Anglican choral tradition. Childress, who had come to Chicago from the Twin Cities, and alto Anne Heider met in the professional choir of Holy Name Cathedral a year earlier, but several of the folks in that choir were interested in a group that would concentrate on Renaissance music so Childress took upon himself the burden of getting the word out, arranging rehearsal space and choosing repertoire, and the group’s debut as a group was on a festival program sponsored by the Chicago Area Early Music Association in the fall of 1982, beginning its own concert series the following year. When Childress moved to England in 1989, Heider took over as artistic director, but the group’s programming had already been gradually expanding to include contemporary and well as early choral repertoire and the ensemble had attracted outside conductors such as Sir David Willcocks and Paul Hillier, among others; Hillier even recording an album with the group. Attempting to get away from the royal baggage of its earlier name, the ensemble took on the moniker “Bella Voce,” which as one member noted at the time, “sounded like a bad Italian restaurant,” but the Italian phrase means “beautiful voice,” never mind that the group has rarely, if ever, sung music in Italian. After Heider’s retirement and a deficit that saw a shutdown for a time, the ensemble came back and hired a new music director, Andrew Lewis, who has led Bella Voce to new artistic heights since taking over and who is overseeing the group’s twenty-fifth anniversary celebration, which culminates in this program that looks back as well as ahead. Representative of its Tudor roots, Bella Voce will perform works long associated with the group by Christopher Tye and William Byrd, as well as Robert White’s “Lamentations” for five voices, an innovative piece never performed by the group and that Davis considers “the pinnacle of his output” and “compositionally far advanced for its time.” Contemporary pieces includes highlights from Frank Ferko’s “Hildegard Motets,” a cycle commissioned for the ensemble’s tenth anniversary by the then-unknown Chicago composer who has since moved to California and become renowned for his choral and organ pieces, will also be performed, along with three works by Eric Whitcare, all Bella Voce premieres, including his settings of e. e. cummings’ “I thank you god for most this amazing day,” Anthony Silvestri’s “Sleep” and Octavio Paz’ “Water Night.” (Dennis Polkow) Saturday, April 5 at 7:30pm, St. James Episcopal Cathedral, Wabash & Huron, (312)479-1096. $15-$35.
Cooling It: A Preview of Colleen Green at Cole’s Bar When Green strums power chords or chiming notes on top of her backing track, you might think you’re at Ramones karaoke night and Madonna is taking her turn.
Brutal Finesse: A Preview of King Crimson at Ravinia There have been few new compositions from King Crimson these past two decades, but the live arrangements of songs from its catalog are often strikingly different than the recorded versions.
