By Paul Horsley

With several Grammy Awards to their name and an international reputation to uphold, Charles Bruffy and the 24-voice Kansas City Chorale certainly count as one of our city’s great success stories. The 2014-2015 season that begins this October will see an appearance by the international jazz and R&B singer Patti Austin; a first-ever program of music entirely by Canadian composers; a rare performance of Herbert Howells’ magnificent Requiem; and the release of a Chandos disc of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (“All-Night Vigil”). Performed and recorded this spring together with Charles’ other ensemble, the Phoenix Chorale, the new disc is doubtless a clear Grammy contender and perhaps the group’s best recording so far. It is to be released in early 2015, exactly 100 years after its composition and Moscow premiere.

For Charles, who in addition to the KC and Phoenix Chorales also directs the Kansas City Symphony Chorus and the Rolling Hills Presbyterian Church Choir, it’s never enough. “I now have 14 horses,” says the noted equestrian with a laugh. “One is never enough. One chorus isn’t enough, one pair of shoes isn’t enough, one city isn’t enough.” But this doesn’t mean he skimps on the Chorale, which was founded in 1982: In addition to artistic triumphs, including an inaugural concert in Lincoln Center’s newly renovated Alice Tully Hall in 2007, fiscally the Chorale has remained on solid footing. “Our board’s small, but it’s very good,” says executive director Don Loncasty, adding that a solid show of “money in the bank” has proven more valuable to donors than Grammy Awards. (Scott Boswell, western region president of The Commerce Trust Company, is the Chorale’s board president.) The Chorale’s earned revenue, which is largely from single tickets, accounts for a whopping one-third of its budget, something rare among major arts groups.

Since his first seasons with the Chorale in the late 1980s, Charles has brought a special kind of care to Russian music, and from the early CD of Rachmaninoff’s Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom to the Grammy-winning disc of Grechaninov’s Passion Week of 2007, the Chorale has become one of the leading exponents of Russian choral music in the world. The austere textures of the Orthodox Church, the pane-vibrating bass lines, the distinctive flavor of Church Slavonic (with diction aided by extensive coaching from former UMKC adjunct professor Olga Dolskaya-Ackerly): It all seems a million miles from the Metro on the Big Muddy, but no matter. “Whatever music we sing, we try to go as far down the road with it as we can,” Charles says, “and it’s been proven several times, in national reviews of our recordings, that from this community in the middle of the country comes a choir that sounds as Russian as any of them.”

The appearance by international jazz singer Patti Austin, herself a Grammy Award winner, is in keeping with the Chorale’s long commitment to music from a wide range of styles. “For the Chorale’s classical voice to be mixed with the more sultry, salty voice of Patti Austin I think will be a really nice ‘mash-up’ as they say these days.” Charles also says he has long wanted to repeat the Howells, which the Chorale has not performed in decades. And his interest in Canada was sparked by a concert by the National Youth Choir of Canada he heard at a conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, this May. “They did all Canadian composers,” he says, “and it was just one beautiful song after another. The composition is of a very high level and in many cases quite experimental … a little taste of music from our neighbors to the north.”

For tickets and information about the 2014-2015 season, call 816-235-6222 or go to kcchorale.org.

KC CHORALE 2014-2015: THE SEASON

October 15th: Patti Austin, Grammy Award-winning singer joins the Chorale for an evening of r&b, pop, jazz and more (Folly Theater)

December 11th: “WinterSong,” annual holiday season concert (Rozzelle Court, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)

December 12th and 14th: “The Holiday Concerts,” including “Classical Christmas” (December 12th, Rolling Hills Church and December 13th, at a location TBD) and “The Youth Concert” (December 13th, St. Michael the Archangel Church)

January-February 2015: Rachmaninoff’s Vespers (All-Night Vigil), a recording with the Phoenix Chorale, to be released on the Chandos label exactly 100 years after the work’s composition and first performance

February 22nd and 24th: “North of the Border,” a celebration of the vast expanse of Canada and its music: lush and lyrical songs for the soul (February 22nd, location TBD and February 24th, Asbury United Methodist Church)

April 4th: “SpringSong,” one-hour concert marking Easter and the oncoming of spring (Rozzelle Court, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)

May 2nd: “The Herbert Howells Requiem,” rare performance of this essential piece, written as a tribute to the composer’s son in 1932 and kept hidden for much of the composer’s life (Helzberg Hall TBD)

To reach Paul Horsley, email him at phorsley@sbcglobal.net or find him on Twitter (paul.horsley.501).

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