The Salt Lake Men's Choir will be joined by members of the Utah Symphony for a performance of "When We No Longer Touch: A Song Cycle for Survival," to be presented as part of an AIDS weekend March 11 and 12.
The concert will take place Sunday, March 12, at 6 p.m., preceded by a workshop Saturday at 6 p.m., both at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark.Written by Kris Anthony, who until his death from AIDS was assistant conductor of the Turtle Creek Chorale, the work was featured in the PBS documentary "After Goodbye." Composed for men's chorus, soprano soloist and small orchestra, it consists of seven sections drawn from the poetry of Peter McWilliams ("How To Survive the Loss of a Love") and the Latin text of the traditional requiem mass.
Douglas Kinney will direct the performance, with Heidi Bloyer as guest soloist. KSL's Amanda Dickson will introduce the program.
"It's a very emotional, extremely human piece," says Kinney, who has served as the choir's artistic director since the fall of 1993. "The writing is very simple in terms of texture and harmonic structure, but when it comes to describing human emotions, such as the anger of the `Dies Irae,' it changes tempo and meters like crazy."
It also reflects the emotions Kinney says he felt during the eight years it took him to come to terms with the death of his father.
"I think it's sort of a `mini loss seminar' in dealing with grief," says the 1986 Murray High School graduate. "I know it helped me put a lot of issues at rest personally. Then, in terms of the losses the entire arts community has suffered from the AIDS epidemic, it seemed like a natural for an AIDS benefit, though there's nothing in there that's specifically AIDS-related."
The weekend itself represents the latest installment in the choir's ongoing education-and-outreach program, begun under Kinney a year ago.
"We did one last year for Our Lady of Lourdes, to raise money for their social and music ministry," he says, adding that next year's project will be a benefit for the YWCA's "Women in Jeopardy" program for battered women. A Utah Centennial event, it will feature a song cycle by the choir's composer in residence, Ruth Stoneman, with texts drawn from 100 years of poetry by Utah women.
Kinney says he wanted to bring a comparable degree of class to this year's program.
Currently based both here and in Boulder, Colo., where he heads the Colorado Music Theater Festival, Kinney served until 1993 as associate conductor at Virginia Opera. But since coming back to Utah, he says, "all the AIDS benefits I've seen have been things like casino nights, comedy nights and spaghetti dinners. I've never seen anything that actually dealt with the weight and seriousness of the disease."
That focus will also be maintained in the workshop, where University of Utah immunologist Kristen Ries, known as the "AIDS doctor" to thousands of Utahns, will address the current state of the epidemic and where research seems to be heading. In addition, Kathleen Braza, director of the bereavement program at Intermountain Recovery Services, will discuss coping with the loss of a loved one and the healing process.
The two women, who Kinney says are donating their time, will also speak at the concert.
Kinney acknowledges that AIDS is a topic of concern to the membership of the Salt Lake Men's Choir, but denies the group is exclusively gay.
"That reputation might have been deserved in the past, but not anymore. We have members who are gay, and we welcome them, but we also welcome members who aren't." That also goes for the group's audience, which Kinney calls "as diverse as any arts organization I know in town.
"But this never has been and never will be any sort of political gesture and, whenever I'm asked, I tell them, `I don't even know what music you'd choose that would be different. I was trained with a particular music tradition and that's what I teach."
At present the choir consists of around 40 voices and offers three major concerts a year. Last month it also sponsored a composers contest, in which the winners were Mark Johnson and Neil Hoyt, both of whose pieces will be performed on upcoming programs. The judges, Kinney notes, were himself, Stoneman and the U.'s Henry Wolking.
The suggested admission donationa to next weekend's concert and workshop is $25 for both or $15 for either, with proceeds going to the Utah AIDS Foundation and the People With AIDS Coalition. Prepaid reservations may be made by sending a check to the Salt Lake Men's Choir, P.O. Box 1844, Salt Lake City, Utah 84110-1844, or by calling 482-SONG.