By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Music director Tim Carney conducts the Hawaii Vocal Arts
Ensemble during a rehearsal at Saint Andrews
Cathedral on Monday night.
Classical melody
A local composer's work
By John Berger
celebrates the birth of Christ
Special to the Star-BulletinW hen composer Donald Reid Womack accepted a commission for a song celebrating the birth of Christ, it seemed like a routine matter. It wasn't until after he completed "O Magnum Mysterium" that Womack and his wife discovered the song was art reflecting life. "The great mystery of the birth of Christ is a metaphor for the birth of anything, (and) the miracle of life. My wife and I are expecting our first child, but at the time I wrote it we didn't know she was pregnant."
The child isn't due until next year, but the post-modern a capella song debuts this weekend when the 30-member Hawai'i Vocal Arts Ensemble performs two Christmas concerts at St. Andrew's Cathedral. The program includes music from the American South, Austria, England, Spain and Broadway. Ticket sales benefit Hawaii Public Radio.
"It is a very post-modern piece, which means it combines elements of past styles to create a new style. . . . So at any given moment in the piece you might think that it's a 16th century piece or an 18th century piece, but put it all together and its a late 20th century piece. There's no other time it could have been written."
The song will be eventually be recorded on the Vocal Arts Ensemble's first compact disc.
It'll be another entry on the resume for Womack. He teaches musical composition at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, and is one of several composers of classical music in Hawaii.
Womack is anticipating the public debut of another composition here. "On Fields of Frozen Fire," inspired by a visit to the Big Island, will be performed by the Honolulu Symphony in January.
By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
The Hawaii Vocal Arts Ensemble rehearses.
A compact disc of the performance is planned.
Although he grew up in a musical family, Womack was a very unwilling student of the piano as a kid. College whetted his interest in music -- first rock, then classical. He's been composing since."There are actually several composers of 'serious,' or classical, music here, (but) we generally tend to not market ourselves unless something like this comes up. Some are at the university, others outside the university. The symphonic genre is still living and evolving. It's not a 'dead white male' thing."
Hawaii Vocal Arts Ensemble
Showtimes: 7:30 p.m. Saturday; 4 p.m. Sunday
