For its celebration of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the venerable Los Angeles Master Chorale invited Jason Max Ferdinand, one of the most visible advocates of Black composers and choral music, to curate and conduct a program. Ferdinand intended the evening, as originally designed, as “a kind of journey” focused on “hope in humanity working together.”
As it turned out, the theme of hope could not have been more welcome, just days after the worst wildfires in Los Angeles history tore through the city. The near-capacity crowd that filled Walt Disney Concert Hall on Sunday, Jan. 19, was obviously hungry for the sense of community and spiritual healing that music can provide amid anxiety and fear. Master Chorale Artistic Director Grant Gershon encouraged the audience to find “hope, compassion, and resilience” in the selections to follow. Frontline fire workers and first responders were invited to attend the performance for free in tribute to their service and received the first of the evening’s many standing ovations.
Ferdinand, born in Trinidad and Tobago, presided in a genial, folksy manner, commenting on the music and its personal significance for him, even relating his family background. As the concert progressed, it became increasingly informal and chatty, a sort of conversation with the conductor’s relatives (of whom several were in the audience) and friends. By the end, the audience was singing along, first in a chorus of Ferdinand’s own world-premiere composition “Just in Time,” a bluesy anthem to the power of “love to bring solace,” and finally in an emotional communal rendition of the civil rights hymn “We Shall Overcome.”
Presented in six sections (titled “to sing,” “to express self,” “to share joy,” “to share our stories,” “to bring hope,” and “to experience the journey of life”), the program included arrangements of several traditional spirituals and hymns. The opening “Steal Away” set the meditative tone, sung at a delicately hushed volume and slow tempo. “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the official anthem of the NAACP, brought the crowd to its feet to join in. Later came William Dawson’s arrangement of “My Lord What a Mourning,” taken at a mournful tempo and low dynamic level, similar in style to a motet, plus Dawson’s own composition “Zion’s Walls,” brought to life by soprano Caroline McKenzie’s blazing solo.
Beethoven’s “Hallelujah” from the 1802 oratorio Christ on the Mount of Olives provided a welcome note of variety to the program and gave the chorus an opportunity to demonstrate its comfort in the traditional classical repertoire. As Ferdinand noted, King was especially fond of Beethoven’s music, as was his wife Coretta, a classically trained singer.
After intermission came “Soon I Will Be Done,” arranged by John Stoddart, an overwrought mini-rhapsody for chorus and piano performed with accompanist Lisa Edwards. Ken Burton, a British musician of Jamaican heritage and consultant on the film Black Panther, was represented by a fussy arrangement of “Swing Down, Chariot,” complete with swooping word-painting, and “The Promised Land,” his dutiful tribute to King, incorporating spoken excerpts from the civil rights leader’s speeches, recited vociferously by Derrell Acon.
Two original works closed the concert. “Keramos” by James Mulholland is a wandering and sentimental setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem of the same name (also known as “The Potter’s Wheel”). Jacob Collier, a protege of Quincy Jones, wrote the close-harmony “World O World” for Ferdinand’s ensemble, the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers; it’s a tearful and earnest plea for universal love and harmony. Here, the Master Chorale sopranos showed their stuff, soaring to angelic heights.
Ferdinand conducted throughout with precision and snap, and the chorus responded with precise entrances, lush unisons, and a consistently well-blended sound. The ensemble, its ranks thinned by an illness that sidelined 11 singers, was smaller than usual but still projected a big sound. Most of the selections were melancholy and showcased the group’s impressive control of dynamics — it isn’t easy to sing with clarity at such low volume. And there was no doubt that the music and performances stirred and comforted the fire-weary folks gathered in Disney Hall, united for a few hours in appreciation and hope.
