Singers lavish crowd with 'Simple Gifts'

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Oct 15, 2004 by Bill Blankenship Capital-Journal

The opening concert of the Topeka Festival Singers' 2004-05 concert season made one feel like a kid to whom Santa Claus had been very good indeed.

Titled "Simple Gifts," the program Monday night in White Concert Hall was one treat after another. Dr. Kevin Kellim, director of the mixed chorus, did a superb job of programming, offering an eclectic choice of songs.

It is difficult to say which selection was my favorite, but the beauty of Mark Wilberg's arrangement of "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" struck me. This gorgeous number perfectly melded superb singing with simple but elegant orchestration.

Two Washburn University music majors, Erica Seago on flute and Heather Kumlin on oboe, engaged in a call and response with the singers --- the flute matching the female voices and the oboe echoing the male ones. Had I been allowed to select an encore number, it would have been this song.

An equally moving moment came in the second half of the show when the chorus beautifully rendered Leonard Bernstein's "Make Our Garden Grow," from "Candide."

On the lighter side, Kellim and the Singers offered some whimsy in the form of the finale from Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Gondoliers," the accompaniment of which required Jane Anderson to add her two hands to those of Mark Pudwill on the piano.

Another bright --- and nostalgic --- moment came when the chorus sang an arrangement of Leigh Harline's "When You Wish Upon a Star," the song audiences first heard coming from the mouth of Jiminy Cricket in the 1940 Disney animated feature film, "Pinocchio."

Hearing the song so lusciously sung made me think of sitting around as a boy with my family watching "The Wonderful World of Disney."

The evening also offered a wonderfully sung duet by Judy Coder and Jennifer Somers of "Agnus Dei" set to the hauntingly beautiful "Flower Duet" from Leo Delibes' "Lakme." Care Seltmann also moved the audience with her rendition of the "Give Me Jesus," arranged for her by R. Douglas Helvering, of the William Baker Festival Singers.

Every song in the show was a gem, and Kellim closed the program with spirituals, perhaps the most requested form of music in the Singers' repertoire.

An a capella arrangement of "Deep River" was followed by "Walk in Jerusalem," in which soloist Jeff Kready got the amen crowd going with his enthusiastic tenor voice.

"Down by the Riverside" capped the evening. It had the tuxedo- wearing Pudwill playing some lively ragtime on a grand piano. It tied a ribbon on an evening of musical presents.

Bill Blankenship can be reached at (785) 295-1284 or bill.blankenship@cjonline.com.