Catherine Pederson and the Orcas Choral Society: A Retrospective of Song and Friendship

Catherine Pederson, Orcas Choral Society Founding Director/Artistic Director, will retire after the Spring Concerts on Saturday, May 8 and Sunday, May 9 at the Orcas Center

If you ask Catherine Pederson what she is proudest of in her 33-years as Founding Director/Artistic Director of the Orcas Choral Society, her answer may be a surprise.

For she has steadfastly, modestly – but proudly – led the community choir through performances of world chorale classics, beginning with selections from Handel’s Messiah, to pieces commissioned specifically for the Orcas Choral Society, with Broadway musicals, international premieres, ethnic and folk songs, world music and Gilbert and Sullivan thrown in between.

But, after months of reflection following her announcement to retire after the Spring Concerts next weekend, Catherine’s answer is that she takes the greatest pride in the fact that “So many people have told me, ‘The Orcas Choral Society was the first place I got to know other islanders – where I made my first friends.’”

The seeds for the Orcas Choral Society (OCS) were planted long before Catherine and her family came to Orcas Island in 1972. She studied music throughout school and college and benefited from “wonderful teachers who had high musical standards.” While raising her five children on Orcas Island with husband Dale Pederson, she “made every effort” to attend master classes, even though, “You can’t just go across town; it’s hard to get off the island sometimes.”

But her devotion to music and choral singing continued undiminished. “It’s so wonderful for children and everybody.” She paraphrases from a favorite book, Exuberance: the Passion for Life, saying “Music has an infectious, and on occasion, transformative effect.” Catherine says, “I kept thinking about a community choir,” and she was finally motivated by the island truism: “If you want to do something on Orcas Island, you have to make it happen by yourself.”

Through the years she has always focused on the joy of singing and the gift of performance. Concert programs through the last 33 years give a retrospective of the variety and depth of the Orcas Choral Society music chosen by Catherine:

Handel’s Messiah

The Orcas Choral Society started with a community performance of selections from Handel’s widely-known Messiah in 1977; with piano accompanist Louellen McCoy, the Orcas Choral Society was launched. Louellen accompanied the choir for 25 years, and with Catherine, played many duets from Debussy to Brubeck over the years. Louellen, an accomplished photographer, has also archived OCS history in a series of four scrapbooks that will be on display at the receptions following the concerts on May 8 and 9.

After the initial concerts, Catherine “went home and was pleasantly surprised” at the popularity of the Messiah concert, and so continued the experiment – for the next three decades. “We must have been all right, because we’re still here!”

Over the years she’s learned to gauge audience and choir reception of songs, as well as the choir’s ability to master  them. “Some music has been very successful,” she says, “and we’ve stretched our repertoire.”

One piece that has borne repeat performances is “River of Judea,” which will be sung next weekend. The choir’s most heartfelt performance however, was perhaps during a rehearsal – on Sept. 11, 2001, the Tuesday evening following that day’s terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City. There was some discussion about launching the choir’s year – and the seasonal Winter Concert rehearsals – with joyous Christmas songs after such a traumatic event. But “The River of Judea” seemed to speak for steadfast perseverance and hope in the face of violence and death.

Song has been the Choral Society’s response to other disasters, such as “Big Easy On My Mind,” composed by Melinda Bargreen immediately following the flooding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Songs of the Sea

Soon after the Choral Society’s founding, Catherine and Dale traveled for the first time to the Maritime Provinces in eastern Canada, where her Scottish forebears had settled. In Cape Breton. She met musicians such as the legendary MacGillivray family and Scott MacMillan and Jennyfer Brickenden, composer and lyricist for Celtic Mass for the Sea. While at a ceilidh (Gaelic for a joyous musical party, pronounced “kay-lee”), she heard a young woman sing, “Fare Thee Well, Love.” Catherine remembers, “I was transfixed; I’d never heard anything so beautiful.” She searched for a choral arrangement of the song, (which will be part of the concert program next week) and from there, she went on to claim Cape Breton songs such as “Bye, Bye My Island,” “Away from the Roll of the Sea,” and “Song for the Mira.”

When asked what makes these songs so appealing, Catherine says, “They’re written from the heart by people who love music. It’s part of their whole lives. It’s simple and unpretentious – they sing for themselves. The whole crowd just sings; they just love their music.

“And maybe it has something to do with people who love islands,” she adds.

All the World’s a Stage

Early on, the Choral Society joined forces with other community musicians performing “Extravaganza at the Grange” and other musical and dramatic programs at the school gym and the Grange, before the opening of Orcas Center.

They performed Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury (with accomplished “patter” singer  Jonathan Clark), and selections from H.M.S. Pinafore, Pirates of Penzance and Ruddigore. The OCS has included narrators Tom O’Brien in Rutter’s “Brother Heinrich’s Christmas,” and Tony Lee, reciting “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” And many concerts through the years have celebrated Shakespeare’s words in song – “Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind,” and “Who is Sylvia?” among them. Several  performances during those early years enabled the Choral Society to raise funds towards the purchase of the Baldwin grand piano that now resides on the Orcas Center’s Main Stage.

Opening of Orcas Center 1986

“We were a force at the opening of the Orcas Center!” say Pederson, with standing room only at the opening ceremonies. OCS commissioned a piece based on a Siegfried Sassoon poem, “Everyone Sang” for the Center’s opening. But with her ear for discernment and respect for her choir, Catherine says simply, “It wasn’t very popular,” and so it remains in the back reaches of the Choral Society’ library. On the other hand, a selection from The Music Man was also performed at the Center Opening and has been reprised many times since.

Music Makes the World Go Round

Sometimes living in an isolated area such as an island can make the world at large difficult to approach – but Catherine has not found it so. From early years, her programs have included music from all lands and faiths.

An African program was the focus of one concert with the Marimba Band headed by Bob Phalan. “People were dancing in the aisles,” says Catherine. African music has continued its popularity in performance, especially the jubilant “Wana Baracka” and the South African freedom song, “Thula Sizwe,” juxtaposed with the European chant melody “Of the Father’s Love Begotten” in “Hope and Resolution: a Song for Mandela and de Klerk.”

Mexican folk carols and reggae music from the Caribbean, with its tricky rhythms, have been featured in several OCS concerts; as has music set to poetry by Sufi mystic Rumi, and “Gate, Gate” a setting of a Buddhist Mantra by Canadian composer Brian Tate.

Jewish songs have frequently been a part of the Winter concert, as Hannukah is celebrated in songs such as “Shemen Zach” (“Pure Oil”) and “S’Vivon” (“Dreydl Song”) and the desire for peace is expressed in the yearning “Oseh Shalom.”

The choir especially enjoys singing the American folk songs such as “Billy Boy” and “Bought Me a Cat” and the American spirituals, from “Balm in Gilead” and “The Road Home” to the gospel songs, “Soon and Very Soon,” “Rise Up Shepherd and Follow,” and “This Little Light of Mine.”

Joyous Sounds of Christmas

The Winter Concerts, held in December, have always been a combination of religious expression, the beauty of nature in winter, and a good shot of silliness, from “The Lesser Joys of Christmas,” to “Throw the Yule Log On, Uncle John” to last winter’s Hawaiian-themed “Christmas Island,” accompanied by ukulele-ists Charly Robinson and Robin Gropp.

The Winter Concerts have also been when the OCS sang “big” classical choral pieces, ranging from Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Charpentiere’s Messe de Minuit from the 17^th century, to contemporary composers John Rutter’s Magnificat and selections from Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahal and the Night Visitors.

Catherine has always tried to balance the “high musical quality” of the classic religious pieces with secular songs of equal caliber, and has included compositions such as “Velvet Shoes,” and “Snow and Evergreen,” in the Joyous Sounds of Christmas concerts.

Catherine has long sought out Guest Musicians for the Choral Society concerts, in part because there are so few venues for instrumentalists on the island. Along with Bob Phalan on marimba, the guests have included Gary Garritan on harp, Carolyn Cruso on hammered dulcimer, Ian Lister on bagpipes, Bruce Harvie on mandolin, Charly Robinson and Robin Gropp on ukulele, Dimitri Stankevich on tuba, Gene Nery on guitar and voacals, Susan Osborn, vocalist, the Olson Violin Trio  and the Olga Symphony.

Local composers have been included also, as the OCS repertoire has grown to include songs by island composers from sometime-Waldron Islander Morten Lauridsen’s “O Magnum Masterium” to Ed Wilson’s “Above the Northern Lights” to James Hardman’s setting of the Gerald Manley Hopkins sonnet, “Pied Beauty.”

Beside piano/rehearsal accompanists – Louellen McCoy, Patty Johnson and Terri Triplett – choral society members that have accompanied the singers have been Pam Loew on bagpipes, Jenny Pederson on flute, Gil Blinn on clarinet, Mary Gropp and Karen Blinn on oboe, and Jim Shaffer-Bauck, “resident percussionist.”

Celtic Mass for the Sea

The Celtic Mass for the Sea had its international premiere with the Orcas Choral Society in 1996, and was performed again in 2002, accompanied by a group of Celtic musicians led by the national fiddle champion Brandon Vance – in a kilt! Members of the choir have sung Celtic Mass for the Sea at Carnegie Hall and on a tour through Scotland. When first approached to join the Canadian Amateur Musicians Choir in the Carnegie Hall performance, Catherine thought it was just “pie in the sky.” But about a dozen OCS singers made the trip, and Catherine herself sang with the sopranos at Carnegie Hall.

Mass for the Children

John Rutter’s Mass for the Children in 2004, was another community collaboration, with long-time OCS soprano Eleanor Peterson rehearsing a chorus of 25 children accompanying the Choral Society. That was the largest OCS group ever on stage at the Orcas Center, with the Children’s Choir, the Choral Society and instrumentalists. “It’s a good thing the Fire Marshal wasn’t there,” laughs Catherine.

Singing with children on “Look at the World,” and “Why We Sing” and other compositions has been a feature of the Choral Society’s performances in the Orcas School Music Program’s Benefit Concerts, held the first Sunday in March. These concerts, sponsored by the Music Advocacy Group (MAG), bring thousands of dollars into the Orcas Island Schools music program. “The MAG concerts are light-hearted fun, with great popular appeal. And we sing with the band, which is unusual,” says Catherine.

Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival founder Aloysia Friedmann and her husband, pianist  Jon Kimura “Jackie” Parker have performed with the Choral Society at MAG concerts and in OCS concerts over the years. The Chamber Music Festival honored the Choral Society with their inclusion in the 2007 Chamber Music Festival’s first, free outdoor concert on the Eastsound Village Green. Catherine directed choir members in selected songs from “The Twelve Months,” written by Composer-in-Residence Peter Schickele.

Something New

All the OCS songs are meaningful and have a story, but Catherine’s leadership of the Choral Society has always included the quest for new music. And so the Spring Concerts will introduce, “Where Your Bare Foot Walks,” a song written for composer David Child’’s bride on their wedding day.

In celebration of the 30^th anniversary of the Choral Society, “The Rose” was commissioned with the sponsorship of Fred Whitridge in memory of his wife Betty, long a OCS member. The Choral Society was invited to submit poems they’d like set to music, and decided upon “The Rose” by Theodore Roethke, written following the poet’s visit to the San Juan Islands. The work was composed by Stephen Chatman for the 30^th year anniversary Spring Concert, was performed again in 2008 and will be sung this weekend.

Some of the choices have been controversial, when singers find the songs express sentiments hard to square with their religious, military, artistic or feminist beliefs. Catherine has respectfully considered their objections – and then incorporated the songs in the programs. She admits that the songs were not always “whole-heartedly accepted, but I wasn’t going to be denied,” she adds, with the velvet-glove firmness that the choral society has come to expect and appreciate.

Every Tuesday night (except during summers) they have come to see what Catherine has dreamed up for them to tackle or enjoy. She will say, “Let’s take this opportunity to create a choral concept of this piece.” She will stop the rehearsal repeatedly to tweak “uv” into “awev” when pronouncing “of;” or “day-o” into “deh-o” when articulating “Deo.”

Sometimes the songs seem to come to together at the last moment, sometimes they are lovingly embraced as delightedly as grandchildren coming to visit, and sometimes they are delivered with an excellence that surprises even the director herself. (The audiences may not see the delighted smiles and silent kisses Catherine gives the performing choir from time to time).

But she says the pleasure has been hers:  “I always wanted to conduct singers – even as a child – and I wanted to be inclusive of people who want to sing, and sing each others’ songs.”

And like all the best pleasures, the Orcas Choral Society is one that has been shared among many friends over the years.

For many, Catherine Pederson IS the Orcas Choral Society. But now she is handing over the conducting duties to Roger Sherman and has only one unresolved question: “I’m just worried about where I’m going to wear my concert clothes!”

The Spring Concerts will take place at the Orcas Center on Saturday, May 8 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, May 9 at 2 p.m. A gala reception in the Madrona Room to honor Catherine Pederson follows each concert. Tickets are available for the concerts by calling the Orcas Center Box Office at 376-2281 or going online to www.orcascenter.org.