Thursday, Oct. 01, 2009

Masterworks Chorale launches new era with familiar face

The Masterworks Chorale will launch a new era with a familiar face when it opens its 2009-2010 concert season Friday night at McKendree University in Lebanon.

After guiding the Masterworks children's choirs through the 1990s, Stephen Mager is back, this time to lead both the metro-east's most respected adult chorale as well as its youth chorus. Fresh from earning his doctorate at Indiana University's world-renowned Jacobs School of Music, Mager says he couldn't be more thrilled.

"I'm very pleased and very excited," said the multitalented man who has earned praise for his composing and keyboard work as well as directorial skills.

"I've always had a very, very high opinion of this organization -- for their emphasis and their interest in fine concert music on kind of a grand scope. That's one of the reasons I decided to complete my doctoral studies. I really wanted to conduct at this level and this kind of music."

That's music to the ears of the Masterworks board of directors. Since Christmas 2007, the group has been searching for a firm rudder to replace chorale founder Dr. A. Dennis Sparger, who had been at the helm for more than 34 years.

Perhaps it was fate that Mager was finishing his degree while the chorale went through the four-month tenure of Dr. Thomas Sheets followed by a season of guest conductors. Once Mager returned to St. Louis, the board knew they had their man -- and they had to act fast because other groups were interested.

"Everyone was impressed with what he did with our children's group," said Mike Niederer, the board's vice-chairman and a friend of Mager's since his first 11-year stint with the group.

"How he worked and conducted the entire program was just outstanding. I'm confident that that same feature is going to take hold with the adult group."

So is Sparger. It was 1989 when Dr. William Heyne, founder of the Bach Society of St. Louis, recommended Mager to Sparger when he was looking for a children's chorus director. Heyne was impressed by the work Mager was doing with the small children's choir at Bethel Lutheran Church in St. Louis, where Mager still plays and conducts.

Sparger is sure his Masterworks is again in good hands.

"We just feel very confident that the program is going to improve tremendously and will involve even more children developing into fine adult musicians," Sparger said.

Mager will waste no time making his mark. For his first concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, he will put on a multimedia affair -- flashing artwork on the screen in the Hettenhausen Center to complement a wide variety of choral works ranging from sets of songs by American Aaron Copland and England's Vaughan Williams to music in French and German.

He calls it "A Gallery of Song."

"The whole world of serious concert music -- it's changing," said Mager, who says he picked up new ideas while being surrounded by younger colleagues during his recent college days. "You know, the 19th century was a very literate age, but I think our age is a very visual age.

"We have to make efforts, I think, to broaden the artistic characteristics of our concerts. If we just stand and do music -- for me, that's wonderful, but I know that not every audience member is coming with the same sensibilities and the same expectations.

"So I wanted our first concert to be somewhat different. I wouldn't say it's going to be like a wild laser light show, but it's still not typical of a concert experience. And, I'm going to be looking for more new ways to present the great, old music that we all love so well."

Mager has grown to love that music since his earliest experience with the sacred, worship sounds of Catholic school and church. He admits taking a short hiatus in high school, but once he started singing again in the chorale at St. Louis University, he was hooked -- and not only on the classics but also on the accompanist, Margaret, whom he later married.

"Here's the thing: I think you could make a case that all artful music is somehow an extension of the human voice," Mager said. "What's even better is when you get a group of people together who are performing with great intonation and focus, the whole is really, really greater than the sum of the parts, and that's a great, great thing.

"The experience for those of us in it is more even than a musical experience. It's a spiritual one. It's a deeply humanizing experience. And, for an audience, I think it really touches people in a powerful way."

Conducting has allowed Mager to touch untold thousands. In addition to his work with the Masterworks children, Mager has led the education outreach performance of the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, for whom he conducted the world premiere of Adolphus Hailstrik's "Joshua's Boots" in 1999 as well as such other works as Lukas Foss' "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."

He also conducted the Midwest premiere of Hans Krasa's "Brundibar," for which he also wrote incidental music to poetry by young victims of the Holocaust. Other credits include the St. Louis Chamber Chorus as well as his old St. Louis University Chorale.

His composition work is drawing acclaim as well, so you also can expect to hear more of Mager's own arrangements at Masterworks concerts. While conducting the Arcangeli Chamber Chorus in the late '90s, for example, Mager recorded his own Christmas carol settings for the CD "Joy for Every Age."

Two of his carols were performed by the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus in Severance Hall, and Mager was asked to take a bow at one of the performances. In 2006, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis commissioned him to write "Dream of the Pacific," a young people's opera to celebrate the bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark Expedition. It eventually was performed in Omaha, Kansas City and Washington, D.C., where he was able to rub elbows with famed tenor Placido Domingo.

"Mager excels at conveying a wide variety of feelings ... all in a musical language that is both lyrical and comprehensible," a Washington Post critic wrote of the man who was named composer of the year in 2001 by the St. Louis Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Now, Mager returns to familiar turf, where some of those he once taught as children will be watching his every move as adults. The father of three hopes he'll see a third generation in the children's ranks as he works to build the adult chorus back up to 50 or even 60 voices with more innovative programming.

"Every year I think we'll try some event like this," said Mager of his first concert. "But I have the firm impression from our board that they also want to continue to do the great works of the masters. They're very interested in recapturing some of that grandeur, so I am hoping to help provide that."

Who: Masterworks Chorale

What: "A Gallery of Song," a multimedia presentation of music and art.

When: 7:30 p.m. Friday

Where: Hettenhausen Center for the Arts, McKendree University, Lebanon

Admission: $15 adults, $10 students.

Season tickets: $75, includes A Masterworks Christmas Dec. 13 at St. Clare Catholic Church in O'Fallon; Brahms' German Requiem March 21 at St. Clare Church; Give My Regards to Broadway May 7-8 at the Hettenhausen Center; and Children's Chorus concerts on Nov. 1 and March 14.

Advance tickets: The Basket Case and The Vineyard, Belleville; Dragonfly Secrets in O'Fallon; and Fezziwig's in Lebanon.

Information: 236-0182 or www.singmasterworks.org.

To audition: Janice Coldispoti (adults) 628-1706; Becky McGrady (children) 257-2761.