So, last night we had the family over to watch the Broncos win over the Chargers (this post was originally written in October 2016), and I was telling my father-in-law about my choir’s upcoming Christmas concert with the Denver Brass, and how they’d be playing with us for the Rutter Gloria, among other pieces, and since he’s a former brass player himself he was quite interested. He looked through the copy I had sitting on the coffee table, taking note of the instrumentation, and then he read the intro material. “Guess where this was first performed?” he asked. “Somewhere in England,” I said. “Nope. Omaha, Nebraska.”
Huh. Kind of surprising. Not that Omaha can’t be cultured! Hey, Denver’s pretty cultured too, and it also has a history as a cow town. Still, you don’t usually expect a Cambridge University don, someone whose music has been performed in Westminster Cathedral, who is a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (that’s a knighthood, a couple of notches up from a lowly Member—I didn’t know there were degrees in these honors until I looked it up on Wikipedia), etc., etc., to show up in the American Midwest. I did a little googling and found that this one American connection did not stand alone. Many of Rutter’s major choral works have had their premieres in the US, and he was for a number of years (1988-2015) an active conductor at Carnegie Hall where he led over 125 performances. His monumental Requiem had its world premiere with the Fox Valley Festival Chorus in Illinois in 1985; his Gifts of Life: Six Canticles of Creation premiered in Dallas in 2015. all sorts of US performances took place in between. But it all started in 1974.
Would Rutter himself be willing to tell me how this whole process came about? Never hurts to ask. I went on his Facebook page and messaged him; this is the answer I got back (which he gave me permission to quote):
Dear Debi Simons,
As it happens the Gloria (written in 1974) was the first work I wrote especially for performance in the USA. It came about simply because I was asked by a very noted choral conductor in the Midwest, Mel Olson, who wrote to me in England offering me a commission to write a 20-minute work for his choir in Omaha, and come over to conduct the first performance. Other commissions from the USA just seemed to follow, to the point where I was able to look upon America as my second home. I visit less often these days, but I still have many friends and colleagues in the US, and am grateful for all the opportunities I was offered and doors that were opened to me all over your vast country – including, as you say, some surprising places – but remember, there are fine performing groups everywhere!
Best wishes, John Rutter
Isn’t that cool? So then I thought, ‘Who’s this Mel Olson?’ I couldn’t find out any more about him than Rutter mentions above, except that he was the director of the Chancel Choir at the First United Methodist Church in Omaha at one time. That choir has premiered two other compositions by Rutter. So the question is, why did Olson think of asking Rutter to write the Gloria? Rutter was about 30, just at the start of his career, and had never been to the States. But, sadly, I found out that Olson died in 2001, so I can’t ask him, “Why did you write to John Rutter in 1974? He hadn’t even started his career as music director at Clare College. How did you hear about him?”
Another American music director, Philip Brunelle, has also had a long relationship with Rutter:
Philip Brunelle’s connections frequently pay off for Twin Cities audiences. Brunelle’s old buddy John Rutter had written a new Christmas carol for an English audience. In a phone conversation, Brunelle suggested that VocalEssence give the piece its U.S. premiere.
“I got a call from Philip and he said they were devoting much of their Christmas program to me, and I told him about the carol,” Rutter said recently. “[VocalEssence] is a choir I’ve always admired and Philip and I go back 30 years.” (from the VocalEssence website)
I guess I could try to contact Brunelle and ask him how his friendship with Rutter began, but I have a feeling that this is one of those long and winding roads that leads to no clear answer. What is clear from these little bits and pieces is the importance, and the mystery, of human relationships. So a music director in Omaha decides, we don’t know how or why, to commission a work from a young choral composer in Britain. Because of that commission the composer visits the US for the first time, and I guess we can assume that the visit was a success. Way leads on to way, as Robert Frost would say. Rutter meets other Americans; connections are formed, so that, as he says, “other commissions from the USA just seemed to follow.” A strong and beautiful friendship is formed.
Gives you a little hope for civilization, doesn’t it?
© Debi Simons
