LA Opus Review of Pacific Chorale’s 2021 Opening Night Concert

LA Opus Review of Pacific Chorale’s 2021 Opening Night Concert

November 10, 2021

  • November 10, 2021

LA Opus Review of Pacific Chorale’s 2021 Opening Night Concert


“It was a masterfully dramatic opening for the Pacific Chorale’s return to the concert platform.”

“The return to the Segerstrom Concert Hall platform of the Pacific Chorale under their Artistic Director Robert Istad could not have been more warmly welcomed, and their performance of Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil Op. 37 that was the main item, filling the second half (and with the bass Ryan Thomas Antal in the first, mezzo-soprano I-Chin Betty Feinblatt in the second, and tenor Nicholas Preston in the fourth and fifth of the work’s 15 movements), showed the Chorale to have lost none of its security of pitch, clarity of articulation, and control of dynamic and rhythmic nuance, despite the long Covid-enforced absence.”

“(Tarik O’Regan’s The Stillness in Chains’) soft bitonal clashes and slowly shifting harmonies were delivered with devoted poise and accuracy by the Chorale, the sense of unresolved, poignant ache reminiscent of the work of Morten Lauridsen.”

“The concert program notes by Dr John Koegel of CSU Fullerton (are) a model of their kind”

Enjoy David Brown’s LA Opus review in it’s entirety:

David Brown, LA Opus, November 6, 2021
https://www.laopus.com/2021/11/choral-contemplations-and-visions-at.html