In the crowded world of male vocal groups, the last thing you would expect to find is an upstart ensemble trying to work its way up the ranks, so to speak. But since 1992, that's exactly what ensemble amarcord has been doing.
And doing it quite successfully, too. Over the past 10 years, the five young German singers from Leipzig have found a niche among such well-established groups as the king'singers, the Hilliard Ensemble, Lionheart and Chanticleer. That's no easy feat, but ensemble amarcord believes it has something special to offer audiences.
"Bach said that music is for both the admiration of God and for the recreation of the human soul, and that's what we try to do," Dietrich Barth said during a telephone interview from Spokane, Wash.
Barth and fellow tenor Wolfram Lattke, along with baritone Frank Ozimek and basses Daniel Knauft and Holger Krause, make up ensemble amarcord.
The name, according to Barth, comes from Federico Fellini's 1974 film "Amarcord." "We were inspired by Fellini's movie. 'Amarcord' is an artificial word that is put together from 'amare,' to love, and 'recorde,' to remember. There are many musical meanings in it. For us, it means that we bring our love of music to everyone, and we remember all musical periods, because we do not specialize in any one period."
The group will be making its local debut this week in a tantalizing program spanning five centuries of music from the English Renaissance to Schönberg, Hindemith and Poulenc. "These are all favorite things we will be singing," Barth said. "My job is to program the concerts, and I try to bring different works into our programs and try to find things that are new for us."
He admitted, though, that everyone in the group comes up with ideas and they all help in putting programs together. "We are a democratic ensemble, and even though we have different opinions, we all work together to make our concerts successful."
Taking a cue from the king'singers, ensemble amarcord's repertoire is huge and encompasses a wide range of music, from the Middle Ages to the Comedian Harmonists to the Beatles to Billy Joel. "We are open-minded," Barth said. "We sing everything that can be sung by five men."
He conceded that it's difficult to perform a broad range of music. "You have to be flexible in mind and voice." But the rewards and satisfaction they get as performers is greater. "Our programs reflect our views on music. Music is about people and about the same human beings, whether we sing sacred music or Billy Joel."
Everyone in ensemble amarcord is a former member of St. Thomas Boys Choir in Leipzig, so it's no wonder that they hold Bach and his views on music in high esteem. Both the city and the church have close ties to the great baroque composer, who spent nearly 30 years working in Leipzig.
"We all grew up there (at St. Thomas)," said Barth. "We are not from one generation, but we knew each other at least a couple of years while we were there."
Barth said there always were different groups in the choir who met outside of school to sing. "There used to be groups at St. Thomas for singing repertoire other than what we did in the choir. We started out with lighter music that the choir wouldn't do, and having our own group gave us a freer approach to music. It was what we wanted to do. It was not the director who told us what to sing."
Barth said that in the beginning no one thought they could make a living singing in their own ensemble. So they all enrolled at the university to pursue other subjects, everything from medicine to German literature. Gradually, however, things began to change for them. "It started out as a hobby," Barth said, "but it slowly changed from being a hobby to a job."
Today, ensemble amarcord tours the world and has become a full-time undertaking. "This will be our busiest year ever. We will be performing more than 100 concerts in the United States and Europe. This will be the first year that we will be doing so many concerts."
In between tours, ensemble amarcord also organizes and runs an annual vocal festival in Leipzig called "a cappella" and does a series of charity concerts benefiting the city's churches. "We do these charity concerts for all the churches of Leipzig," Barth said. "This is our way of helping to preserve the past, not just because of Bach's close association with these churches but because these are beautiful and important buildings.
"These old churches are an important heritage for us, and we as young men have a sense of the past and of the values of the past."
E-mail: ereichel@desnews.com