McLean Concert March 12 to Honor City Choir 10th Anniversary

With a landmark concert March 12, the City Choir of Washington will continue its 10th anniversary celebration under the “last of the old guard” of Washington area conductors, Robert Shafer.

Shafer, who will mark 50 years as a choral director next year, will direct Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday March 12 at St. Luke Catholic Church, 7001 Georgetown Pike, McLean. His chorus will be joined by the James Madison High School Madrigals and women’s chorus in Vienna, from the same school where Maestro Shafer launched his teaching career in 1968.

Many will consider the music timely. The moving Vaughan Williams cantata cries out for reconciliation at a time of tense world division between first and second world wars. Tickets, at $25 and $35, can be purchased at www.citychoir.org as part of the Music in McLean concert series.

Shafer, who is 71, is the lone survivor of an elite group that included Norman Scribner, who headed the Choral Arts Society for over 45 years, and J. Reilly Lewis of the Cathedral Choral Society, before both died recently. Other major symphonic choral directors, Paul Hill and Paul Callaway, passed away many years ago.

Shafer’s 35 years of work previously with the Washington Chorus was superb in every way, including over 400 concerts which he conducted or helped prepare for the Kennedy Center. He had six European tours and a Grammy win in 2000 for Britten’s War Requiem. After his departure as Music Director, Shafer accepted leadership of the newly formed City Choir of Washington, made up mainly of Washington Chorus singers who chose to organize a new chorus and asked him to lead it. Today, nearly half of the 120-member chorus is made up of those singers who joined with him in 2007.

“Bob had enough choral equity built up that the City Choir of Washington could burst onto the Washington choral scene and shine brightly,” says Debra Wynn, who has sung with him in both choruses. Starting with a small budget, City Choir debuted that fall with Handel’s Solomon performed at Rachel M. Schlesinger Concert Hall in Alexandria, Va.

“With 100-or so singers, we can provide the intimate expression of a chamber choir that you could never provide in a chorus of 180 to 200,” says Shafer. “Yet, we can perform pieces that a smaller chorus could never do.”

Shafer figures the choir’s size and venues allow it to do more innovative works than could be done if there was a need to sell thousands of tickets in a big hall. Among recent works are Sir John Tavener’s Requiem Fragments, (a North American premiere), Benjamin Britten’s Cantata Misericordium and works by Arvo Pärt, and Tarik O’Regan, along with traditional masterworks.

As a serious director, Shafer admits that his rehearsals are not designed to only have fun. “When singers seek greatness in something they truly love, it can create joy far greater than having fun, say, at an amusement park,” he says.

Rather than repeatedly run pieces all the way through, Shafer will drill intensely on small sections until they are refined. “It is like taking a Swiss watch apart, polishing each piece and putting it together again,” he says.

Washington Chorus alumni explain why they joined him with City Choir: “He has the best ‘ear’ of any conductor I know,” says Elaine Wunderlich. “He has a commitment to precision and discipline in choral singing that I have not experienced elsewhere,” says Bill Gilcher. “Bob is a good teacher, and singers want to learn from him,” says Carol Edison.

The City Choir’s maestro actually started off as a pianist, earning his bachelor’s degree in piano performance and a master’s in music composition at Catholic University. But he began his career in choral conducting at Madison High School and never looked back. “You are working with people—not a machine called a piano. The human voice is the most direct way of artistic and musical expression, and you are not looking at black and white keys all day,” he says. “On the other hand, the ivory keys don’t talk back to you.”

For nine summers, Shafer trained in France with Nadia Boulanger, who taught some of the 20th century’s greatest conductors and composers. In 1971, he took the reins of the Oratorio Society of Montgomery County, which later became the Washington Chorus. He was also music director of St. Matthew’s Cathedral for three years and the Basilica of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for six years.

He was professor of music at Shenandoah Conservatory in Winchester, Va., from 1983 until his retirement from that post last spring. His City Choir has performed at Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center, Wolf Trap, the Washington National Cathedral, the Music Center at Strathmore and other well-known venues. He is also a member and one of the organists at St. Michael Catholic Church in Annandale.

Rather than scale back with City Choir, Shafer is going full throttle. “I am working at the highest level I have ever been able to do in my concerts,” he says. Shafer has established a three-year plan for City Choir to include such works as Bach’s Mass in B Minor, Monteverdi’s Vespers, Bruckner’s Mass in F Minor, a reprise of “Solomon” (on May 7 in Washington) and a possible tour in the United Kingdom.

And he feels the chorus has found its niche as a medium-sized ensemble mixing experimental works with those of the masters. “If you want to do more interesting repertoire like we do, you had better not be trying to sell 2,000 tickets to it.”

Looking back on his 49 years as a conductor in Washington, Shafer reflected, "I am so grateful for every opportunity that I have had in symphonic and chamber choral music, every student I have taught, and every note of church music that I have played and conducted. Even at a couple of unsure crossroads along the way, God has always led me to something better. I couldn't be happier."

--By Michael Doan