FROM GUEST CURATOR JAMES BASSI

Hello again,

By now it is clear that much of my motivation for presenting this listening series is to make a strong case for supporting music education in our country. So, here in Part 3, I continue the trip down memory lane, sharing highlights of my experiences as a high school choral musician.

The District Chorus was a group of singers, selected by audition, from my region of Massachusetts. In my sophomore year, my stalwart and ever-encouraging choir director, Mrs. Batchelder, had me audition; I got in, and it is not an exaggeration to say that this particular concert changed my life and opened up my ears in significant ways. The most shattering example of this is one I’m saving for my final, fifth, installment. Meanwhile, here is a gorgeous piece I sang on that same concert, by Jean Berger, a composer particularly beloved and admired in the choral spheres. Berger, German-born, fled the Nazis in the early 1930s, resettled in Paris, and eventually came to the U.S., where he went on to teach at several American universities. His utterly idiomatic, natural and singable choral writing rivals that of Randall Thompson, another well-loved American choral composer. This setting of Psalm 23 is part of a trio of a cappella pieces Berger composed, setting excerpts of the Bay Psalm Book, a metrical psalter first printed in 1640 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

— James Bassi