You don’t usually think of choral music and cutting-edge technology ending up in the same sentence.
But for Anna Hamre, music director of the Fresno Master Chorale, the combination of old-fashioned voice and new-fashioned audio-visual tech is what will make the ensemble’s Sunday concert sizzle.
The chorale performs the local premiere of Jocelyn Hagen’s “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” (2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 28, Shaghoian Concert Hall.) The song features live singers and instrumentalists along with pre-programmed projected visuals that include photos, video and animation. The song was commissioned by a consortium of ensembles and has received over two dozen performances since 2019, according to Hagen’s website.
“This concert is unlike anything we have put on before because it involves new technology that truly is cutting-edge,” Hamre says. “I think we’re going to see a lot more in the future. It is so new that we are breaking ground here.”
Here are Five Things to Know:
1. Timing is key.
Images accompanying live orchestral music are nothing new. But in this case, the images are so precisely coordinated with the lyrics and music that a choir member will sit on stage to coordinate the software.
“He has to follow me,” Hamre says. “He’s able to do that with the software by slowing down and speeding it up so that we can synchronize things. It’s his job to stay with me. There are a few places that are hair-raising from my viewpoint – I’ve got to get it just right. But there are other places where I can go with the flow of the music and the acoustics of the room and what’s going on with the orchestra, and he will follow me.”
The point person is Jayke Norris. (The other AV specialist is Madeleine “Maggie” Guekguezian.)
Hamre will be eyeballing him as much as anybody to keep the connection.
2. The composer was the creative force behind both the music and visual component.
“I have designed the work so that the music serves as the foundation for the film instead of it functioning as purely a supporting musical soundtrack,” Hagen writes on her website. She was inspired to create the piece after attending an exhibit in 2016 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts featuring Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicster. The lyrics are in English.
“The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci” was the first large concert work to be created to be performed with the software, called MUSÈIK.
There are nine movements, each with a different concept that da Vinci wrote on or thought about. There are sections on painting and drawing, perception, etc. Hamre describes the style of music as contemporary classical.
3. da Vinci was one brilliant dude.
In his notebooks, the artist mused about the advent of flying machines far in the future – and even predicted that aircraft would one day be used for war. You’ll be reminded in the show of some of his most iconic images, such as the drawings of Vitruvian Man. The lyrics describe the exact, perfect proportionality of the human form as you watch the images come to life on the screen.
“He’s always been the person – more than any other person in the history of the world – to bring together art and science,” Hamre says. I didn’t know how deeply he thought of things and how forward thinking he was.”
The concert is paired with Elaine Hagenberg’s “Illuminare.” She writes in a contemporary romantic style that Hamre describes as “warm and luscious.” The theme of the season has been illumination and inspiration. “These two were really perfect to put together.”
4. The copyright on the audio-visual package is so strict that it disappears the day after the performance.
And don’t bother looking for a performance on YouTube. No recording is allowed.
The result is that when I talked with Hamre earlier this week, she’d never actually seen the program that she’s been working on for months to accompany.
You can go even further by noting that Hamre won’t get a chance to dwell on the visuals in front of her as she stands on the podium, considering how immersed she needs to be in the difficult music. The same goes for the singers, who won’t experience the full visual effect because they are part of the action.
“No one has seen exactly how it’s going to be. It’s going to be so tempting for them to turn around – but they can’t.”
5. All this isn’t just a gimmick.
Hamre is emphatic when talking about the leap ahead this piece takes place in terms of technology. But that wouldn’t matter if the music was ho-hum.
“We’ve seen a lot of flash and pizzazz in choral music to try to make it more exciting or add more ‘stuff.’ And that covers up for the fact there’s not a lot of content in the music. I can promise you that is not the case here. All this videography does not substitute for good writing.”
And Hamre is “pumped” to present it.
“We’re always excited to perform. But this is a whole new world for us, and we are really glad and excited to share it with the community.”
