Two groups, many voices, spellbinding results

By Joe Brown

Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Maybe it’s a stretch to call it “Glee” for grown-ups. But even without the TV show’s fantasy of dancing and dream sequences and cheerleader outfits, ensemble singing proved itself alive and thriving in Las Vegas this weekend at a pair of admirable concerts by intergenerational, multicultural choral groups.

On Friday night 80 voices united in the hovering harmonies of U2’s secular hymn “MLK,” while just steps outside Community Lutheran Church a double line of limos, cabs and cars stretched farther than the eye could see, stuck in a mega gridlock on the way to the U2 concert at Sam Boyd Stadium.

The U2 song was part of an ambitious, eclectic program presented by the Las Vegas Master Singers, partnered with the UNLV Jazz Ensemble.

Directed by Jocelyn Kaye Jensen, the Master Singers bounced through “Come Fly With Me” and a graceful “This Nearly Was Mine” before venturing into jazz arrangements. The group confidently formed the complex chords of “It Don’t Mean a Thing” and a chilly “Solitude,” but was on more unsure footing with the tricky, shifting rhythms laid down by the instrumental ensemble. The singers were solidly back in their comfort zone with “A Sunday Kind of Love” and “Amazing Grace.”

Conducted by guest artist David Loeb, principal pianist with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, the UNLV Jazz Ensemble impressed with a peppy “Petaluma Lu” and a contemporary big band work, “Wyrgly” by Maria Schneider. Loeb asked the audience to “keep an open mind” for what he introduced as “cutting-edge jazz.” He needn’t have worried. The musicians ably handled the inventive changes, and the number went over well. Loeb later took the piano to accompany the Master Singers on the Richard Smallwood gospel song “Total Praise.”

On Sunday, the Southern Nevada Musical Arts Society opened its 47th season with an assured program of music by Handel, Haydn and Mozart at UNLV’s Artemus Ham Hall.

Four layers of singers — 65 voices — filed onto the risers behind the Musical Arts Society chamber orchestra, and as Douglas Peterson took the stage, they opened on a triumphant note with “Zadock the Priest,” one of Handel’s many coronation anthems. The 70 massed voices were lush and appropriately majestic as they followed cascading layers of “God save the King! Long live the King!” with volleys of “Amens” and “Alleluias.”

Four superb soloists — soprano Alisa Thomason, mezzo-soprano Alissa Van Camp, tenor Robert C. Peterson and bass-baritone Carnell Johnson — joined the chorus for the six movements of Haydn’s Creation Mass in Bb Major. The soloists intertwined their voices in complex helix patterns in the incantations of the lengthy Credo; in the Kyrie, the ensemble masterfully wove a dense brocade of baroque harmonies, evoking the impression of light moving over dark water.