Skylark Ensemble

By: Andrew Yuan

On Tuesday, Skylark Ensemble, a Grammy-nominated acapella chamber choir group, performed the premiere of Sub Rosa, a collaboration concert series between alumnus musician Gregory Brown ’93 and alumnus author Dan Brown ’82 in the Forrestal-Bowld Music Center. Originally scheduled for March 2020, the Ensemble visited the Academy as a residential musician group for five days, rehearsed and workshopped musical pieces with the Academy’s choir students. 

This year’s residency marks Skylark’s first return to the Academy since the ensemble’s 2018 visit when the choir group debuted two pieces, “Te Deum” and its companion piece “Sepulchrum Mutum” in The Bowld and the Phillips Church.

G. Brown, the composer of the Skylark Vocal Ensemble, elaborated on his decision to return to Academy in 2018. “The visit was really meaningful to me. My mom passed away about six months prior and I sort of did a meditation on Tuesday mornings. The choir sang music that I had written for them, it was incredibly meaningful not just to my mom, but to me as well,” he said, “I was able to speak about a lot of important life events and share them through music.” 

Chair of the Music Department Kristofer Johnson shared the importance of Skylark Ensemble’s recurring visiting residency to music students and the community. “As a music department, we try really hard to serve all of the different constituencies and types of music-making that happen under this building. People might be interested in larger types of music performances and we see that not only as the concert series, but also as an opportunity for students to come and learn from world class artists right here on campus,” he said. 

G. Brown agreed, citing the intricate process and valuable experience of rehearsing and perfecting musical performances with professional musicians. “It is so important for students to see professionals rehearse. So often you go to a concert and you see just the polished piece. You don’t have a sense of how much work goes into getting there. It's a great thing to be able to see people making mistakes, disagreeing, trying different things, coming to a place where people didn’t think would work, but it really does work,” he added, “a well-run rehearsal can be like a Harkness classroom where, where people communicate and work out for the better.” 

The Music Department had originally planned for a combined performance between Skylark and the Concert Choir, but the performance was canceled due to COVID protocols. 

The concert centered around D. Brown’s fictional character Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code as Langdon was enlisted to explore concealed histories behind buried manuscripts of choral music. D. Brown introduced the concert on Tuesday virtually through a pre-recorded video. “We wanted to present a show as if looking through Robert Langdon’s eyes again to find what is hidden in history. We wanted to find music that was both appropriate for the choir but also appropriate for the audience, that the audience could take something away from without me explaining music theory for 20 minutes,” G. Brown said. 

Choir students found the workshop experience with Skylark Ensemble as inspiring and educational for their music learning. 

“Their tips are so insightful and really helped us bring more emotion into our pieces. I have learned a level of specificity in their approach to pieces, such as improvement with dynamics and also breathe work among other things. I hope students can take away the beauty that can be reached through singing if you give each phrase each note a specific focus and an intentionality. It was so amazing to hear Skylark perform, especially immortal Bach, because in Concert choir we have been working on that and it was so great to hear how the piece should sound,” Concert Choir member and lower Colin Maloney said. 

Concert Choir member and upper Stellan Aalto agreed, noting the transformation that the choir underwent during its rehearsal with the Skylark Ensemble. “In the two rehearsals, our whole choir changed. Their presence and advice channelled a new focus, which we had never had as a choir. They had many opportunities where members of the ensemble came out to help us,” he said, “From diction to dynamics, over the course of the two rehearsals our choir grew so much. We also got to hear them sing songs we had been practicing along with pieces from their own program which was really special and unique. The whole experience was ethereal.”

“We have been working with Skylark especially on vowels and timing as well as responding more clearly to conductors. I hope that we can take away some amazing examples of pitch we learned from Skylark to implement in our own pieces,” Choir student and upper Oliver Brandes said. 

Fellow Choir student and lower David Goodall agreed, citing the rehearsal experience as incredible. “Concert Choir rehearsed several of our current pieces with Skylark Ensemble. It was incredible to work with them, as well as see professionals rehearse the same material we work working on. We learnt a lot, especially with the general flow of pieces,” he said, “The performance on Tuesday was incredible and I’m super glad to have seen it!”

Aalto also shared his experience at the concert. “The theme was enigmas and puzzles in music. There was a projected screen where one of the composers, Gregory Brown, told the audience about the hidden themes in each piece. I had never seen anything like this, so it caught my attention. After working with them for a couple days, it was really interesting to see them perform and execute the things they had taught us, like breath control, to perfection. It was a phenomenal experience and I hope someday they can come back to the school and do some more workshops,” he added. 

Along with the rehearsal, G. Brown shared insightful advice for music students at the Academy. “I think the thing that makes a creative person more interesting is all the tangents. A lot of the time, my composition comes from something tangential: I see a piece of architecture, I see an interaction between a tree and a bird. I’ll think, what could that mean musically? And that leads you to really interesting, unusual places,” he said.