Stockbridge — The Stockbridge Festival Chorus will perform Alice Parker’s “Melodious Accord: A Concert of Praise” at Stockbridge Congregational Church on Saturday, April 27, to honor the composer’s life. Former Berkshire Music School Executive Director Tracy Wilson conducts the 45-voice choir, accompanied by solo vocal quartet, harp, brass quartet, and piano.
Parker’s cantata derives from hymn tunes and texts found in the first five editions of a shape-note hymnal titled “Genuine Church Music.” As such, it seems to evince a distinctly American sound. The piece is divided into four movements: “Welcome,” “Old Testament,” “New Testament,” and “Farewells.”
Parker studied at Tanglewood with Robert Shaw after studying music theory at New England Conservatory and graduating in 1947 from Smith College with a degree in organ and composition. She had a long and productive association with Shaw as well as with Shaw’s mentor Julius Herford. She then began a graduate program in choral conducting at the Juilliard School in New York City.
One of Alice Parker’s most notable achievements was collaborating with Robert Shaw in the 1940s on arrangements for recordings made by the Robert Shaw Chorale.
At the age of 70, the Boston-born Parker founded the professional choir Melodious Accord. Having written five operas, 11 song cycles, 33 cantatas, 11 works for chorus and orchestra, 47 choral suites, more than 40 hymns, and arrangements of spirituals and folk songs, Parker built up a catalog of published compositions numbering over 500 titles. Dozens of publishing companies have included works by Parker that were commissioned by hundreds of community, school, and church choruses. Parker’s books about melodic styles, choral improvisation, and church music including “The Anatomy of Melody” and “The Answering Voice.” The second edition of her essays about congregational singing, “Melodious Accord: Good Singing in Church,” came out in 2013. She released 14 albums with her choir Melodious Accord.
Parker was Chorus America’s first Director Laureate, having received the Distinguished Composer of the Year award from the American Guild of Organists in 2000 and other recognitions from such organizations as the Harvard Glee Club and Smith College. A Fellow of the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, Parker won grants from the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the American Music Center. The International Emily Dickinson Society honored Parker for her choral suite “Heavenly Hurt.” The 2020 Virginia Film Festival selected Eduardo Montes-Bradley’s 2020 documentary “Alice: At Home With Alice Parker.”
Alice Parker had six honorary doctorate degrees.
A search for expert evaluations of the Stockbridge Festival Chorus’s capabilities yielded the following statement from Adam Frishwasser: “Having helped out with multiple concerts, the sound of this chorus has such tremendous beauty to it that mere words cannot do it justice. It’s something you have experience for yourself.”
Hear the Stockbridge Festival Chorus perform Alice Parker’s “Melodious Accord: A Concert of Praise” at First Congregational Church of Stockbridge, 4 Main St., on Saturday, April 27, at 3 p.m.. Tickets: $20 recommended donation at the door, $10 for members of local choruses, free for students under age 19. The church is fully accessible. There will be designated seating for masked attendees. For more information, visit the church’s website or call (413) 298-3137.
