An American Roadtrip with the Orpheus Male Chorus of Phoenix

Transcript of KBACH’s Heart of the Arts Podcast - Orpheus Male Chorus

Greg Kostraba: This is KBACH’s Heart of the Arts podcast. I'm Greg Kostraba. The Orpheus Male Chorus of Phoenix presents its "American Road Trip: Songs from Every Mile" concert from April 11th through the 26th at various locations throughout the valley. Brook Larson is the group's artistic director and Michael DeRoche sings in the chorus, and they're in the KBACH studios to talk about the concerts. Welcome to both of you.

Brook Larson: Thank you.

Michael DeRoche: Thank you for having us.

Kostraba: Brook, you've been artistic director of the Orpheus Male Chorus of Phoenix since 2009. So, tell us a little bit about the ensemble's history. I know it stretches way back into the Depression.

Larson: It does. Our first performance was on Christmas Day of 1929. This is our 97th season. Other than the Tucson Symphony, we are the longest-standing performing arts organization in the state.

Kostraba: That's pretty amazing. And it's kept up all this time?

Larson: Performed a concert every year since their inception in 1929, yeah.

Kostraba: How many concerts do you do in a year typically?

Larson: We usually do two full concert series, one in December and then one in the spring in April/May months. Throughout the year, though, we do some other outreach performances: Troubled Bass Festival in the past, we paired with the Phoenix Children's Chorus and do a Legacy Concert to kind of show the community that choir exists at different generations.

Kostraba: Right. People love to sing and, as Zoltan Kodaly said, "Everyone can sing, they just need to have the opportunity."

Larson: Absolutely. One of my lines is "If you can talk, you can sing." I use it as a recruitment tool.

Kostraba: That's wonderful. Let's talk about the repertoire for these concerts. You've got such a wide variety of music. Folk songs like "Shenandoah" and "Whistle, Maggie, Whistle" to the spirituals "Every Time I Feel the Spirit" and "If I Got My Ticket Can I Ride", all the way to Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot, and even John Denver. So what was your thinking when you programmed this concert, aside from the fact that all of these are American songs?

Larson: So this spring was a little bit of a challenge. It's our country's 250th anniversary, we wanted to recognize that. We happen to be going on tour in June, and about half the choir will be going to the Baltic States for a couple weeks, and so finding music that we can do in the Baltic States and that also works with the theme of our country's anniversary, celebration of America and things like that, was a little bit difficult. But I usually start with a stack of 50, 60, even 70 pieces of music or more, and I don't even know necessarily what the theme is going to be or what the title is going to be, but gradually I just whittle it down to 40 and eventually I come up with about 15, 16, 17 songs, and this year our executive director happened to come up with the title, which is great, and it helped me also fill in some of the final two or three pieces to go with the theme. For every program, I try and pick sacred and secular, and accompanied and a cappella, and older stuff and modern stuff, and things that challenge the singers but the singers will hopefully overall enjoy, and the audiences as well.

Kostraba: And you've got some interesting programming. You talked about America's 250th anniversary, but it's also the 100th anniversary of the iconic Main Street of America or Mother Road. Tell us how you're going to mark the anniversary of Route 66.

Larson: Actually, I didn't even know about the anniversary. I just happened to pick the song "Route 66" and within a few weeks, somebody—I don't remember or recall who it was—told me that yeah, it happens to be the anniversary of Route 66. And so there are different stories, different songs, and the singers will actually get up and tell maybe their story about a journey, whether it was on Route 66 or just a journey, a traveling experience they've had in the United States that makes the song that we're going to sing special to them.

Kostraba: And Michael DeRoche is one of the singers in the ensemble. Have you always been singing?

DeRoche: Yeah, I was a high school choir director way back in the day.

Kostraba: Tell us about your connection with Route 66.

DeRoche: I actually traveled it for about a thousand miles with my kids. We were in Minnesota, went to Chicago and we went all... well, it was a little more than a thousand, we went to Flagstaff. And I'm really excited about the journey that we're going to take our audience members on for this concert tour. Brook has done a fantastic job selecting these songs. The thing that's amazing about Orpheus is people really may not know what to expect if they haven't heard us before, but they always leave feeling connected, feeling moved, and this Route 66 is going to take us on a journey from the north to the south. And particularly for me, I have a personal story about Gordon Lightfoot's song. I was a senior in high school when the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald happened and I actually had a classmate whose uncle was on that ship, and so it's kind of a part of my DNA and I think for... if you're listening to this and you're from Minnesota, you need to come and hear us sing this song. It's going to really connect with you and make you have a feeling of home again.

Kostraba: Absolutely. How long have you been singing in the choir?

DeRoche: I started in 2013, so I've been enjoying 10 or 12 years singing with the choir. And Brook mentioned that we do two main events a year. Tomorrow we're singing at the Desert Mission Adult Care Center for folks that are suffering with dementia or Parkinson's. So besides our big concerts, terrific parts of Orpheus is that we get to be part of the community and share our gift of song across the valley. I'll tell you the camaraderie that we share as... now the chorus is over 80 guys... the camaraderie is really fantastic and the audience, they feel that from us because we connect with them. And I'm really excited that the audience is going to be participating. Not only do we have singalongs, we also are going to have them contribute to their stories of their lives on Route 66.

Kostraba: And maybe in Duluth with the Edmund Fitzgerald as well.

DeRoche: I would hope that. You know, and I assume that everybody understands what the shipwreck was all about. So come to the concert and I'll explain a little bit more and give you some of the inner details of that story.

Kostraba: Brook, Michael talked about the camaraderie among the 80 members of the chorus. What do you do to kind of foster that connection between the folks that are singing under your direction?

Larson: It's funny you ask that. Just last night, my best friend's mother passed away about six years ago and I went to the funeral here a week and a half ago, and what I took away from attending two different services is that my best friend's mother invested in her three boys and she invested in her six grandchildren. And I like to think that I invest in the singers. I would love to have lunch or dinner with each of them individually or in small groups so I could get to know them that much more. Obviously, it's tough with 80-plus singers, but I think Tuesday night I invest in them and in turn they invest in me, they invest in the music, they invest in each other, and the audience gets the reward at the end of all that.

Kostraba: If someone would like to join the Orpheus Male Chorus of Phoenix, how do they go about getting in?

Larson: orpheus.org is the short version. Uh, they can go to our website, orpheus.org and they'll find a tab if they want to apply and get more information. They can reach out to me directly through the website and get my email and things like that. Come to a concert and see if it's for you, come to two rehearsals and see if you like it or not before you even audition. Just come and sit in on a rehearsal and see if it's for you or not. We have such a broad variety of singers' backgrounds: attorneys, we have three retired policemen, teachers, just from all across so many different occupations and it's just special that the one thing we have in common with each other is this love of choral music, and coming together on Tuesday nights is just... it's a special thing.

Kostraba: Brook, Michael, thank you so much.

Larson: You're welcome.

DeRoche: Terrific.

Kostraba: Brook Larson is the artistic director of the Orpheus Male Chorus of Phoenix and Michael DeRoche sings in the ensemble. They present their "American Road Trip: Songs from Every Mile" concert, a series of concerts from April 11th through the 26th at various locations throughout the valley. You can find out more about the concerts and get tickets at orpheus.org. For the KBACH Heart of the Arts podcast, I'm Greg Kostraba.