Celebrating Christmas with Voce Festiva

Seven of Southeast Missouri's most lovely voices join in song Sunday when Voce Festiva performs a program of holiday music.

The seven members include music teachers, a church choral director and professors at Southeast Missouri State University who often perform as soloists. They formed Voce Festiva three years ago to perform classical and contemporary works for a small ensemble.

Voce Festiva will give the free concert at 4 p.m. Sunday at St. Mark Lutheran Church, 1900 Cape LaCroix Road. The program will include contemporary music by Z. Randall Stoope and Noel Goemanne, holiday favorites and songs from the shaped note tradition.

Stephanie Fridley, a Charleston, Mo., native, had sung in a similar if larger ensemble before moving here from Albuquerque, N.M. A teacher at the Southeast Music Academy, the Jackson Primary Annex and the Gordonville Attendance Center, she invited fellow singers and music educators she knew to start something new.

"We were already a loose network of friends," Fridley says. "We all knew each other and knew what each other's voices were like."

In Voce Festiva, they found people similarly dedicated to music and people with complementary abilities.

"We are all really driven by quality," Fridley says. "We want to do a good job. We want to be part of high quality music."

But their rehearsals are hardly all work. "It's a wonderful social outlet for us," says Lori Shaffer, who teaches vocal music at Southeast Missouri State University.

Fridley and Mary Mims, a music teacher at Nell Holcomb School, sing soprano, along with Lori Shaffer and Valerie Schafer. Schaffer teaches vocal music at Southeast Missouri State University, and Schafer is the music director at St. Vincent's Church.

Alto parts generally are sung by Chadie Fruehwald, Leslie Jones and Christy Shinn. Fruehwald teaches at the Southeast Music Academy, Jones is a vocal music professor at Southeast, and Shinn teaches music at North Elementary School in Jackson and at Jackson High School.

Marsha Caughlan, a music teacher at Immaculate Conception School in Jackson, was a member of the group but recently moved away.

Using all women's voices is more taxing vocally, Fridley said. "We can't all just be singing in the middle register."

The group usually prepares two programs per year but rehearses every two weeks. Last Saturday afternoon, they sang outdoors for 90 minutes at the River Ridge Christmas Tree Farm in Commerce. Fridley accompanied the singers on guitar.

Shinn, who did her master's thesis on Voce Festiva, plays piano accompaniment for the group when not singing.

Jones says it's liberating to work with a group of people who usually are concerned about students hitting the right notes but in this case don't have to worry. "We can do things much more quickly and much more efficiently," she says. "We have time to enjoy each other's company."

She joined the group via e-mail before leaving Kansas City to take her position at Southeast. "I thought it would just be a good way to get to know people, but it's one of the best things I've ever done," she said.

For this concert, Dr. Robert Fruehwald will accompany the ensemble on flute, Dr. Dan Dunavan on percussion and Sarah Goeke on percussion.

In shaped note singing, the written notes are differentiated by their shapes -- in one version circles, squares, diamond shapes and triangles -- instead of by positions on the scale. Shaped note singing was adopted in 18th century New England to improve the quality of congregational singing but faded after the Revolutionary War. It was derided as "lewd and crude" by European-trained musicians.

The songs have an Appalachian tonality. "The Babe of Bethlehem" and a version of "Joy to the World" are among the shaped note songs on the program. Chadie Fruehwald, a singing member of the group, accompanies on the dulcimer on "The Babe of Bethlehem" while Fridley plays the pennywhistle.

The lively music from the movie "O Brother Where Art Thou" prompted the group to perform some shaped note tunes, Fridley said.

One highlight of the concert will be the ensemble's performance of "There is No Rose," a traditional text that has been given a modern musical setting.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182