The Portland State Chamber Choir (from Portland State University in Oregon, USA) punches way above its weight, and almost alone among U.S. university ensembles, furnishes competition for British collegiate choirs. This is the group's second album of music by composer Eriks Esenvalds, and the collaboration is becoming very exciting. This album includes settings of two texts by Oregon poet laureate Paulann Petersen. Esenvalds falls into the Baltic minimalist camp (he is Latvian), but compared to Arvo Pärt, he is more lyrical, ...
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The Portland State Chamber Choir (from Portland State University in Oregon, USA) punches way above its weight, and almost alone among U.S. university ensembles, furnishes competition for British collegiate choirs. This is the group's second album of music by composer Eriks Esenvalds, and the collaboration is becoming very exciting. This album includes settings of two texts by Oregon poet laureate Paulann Petersen. Esenvalds falls into the Baltic minimalist camp (he is Latvian), but compared to Arvo Pärt, he is more lyrical, closer to conventional tonality, with liberal use of solo instruments and voices. The Portland State Chamber Choir, here accompanied by shimmering textures from a small group of strings and percussion, is ideally suited to Esenvalds' limpid music, and the singers bring both purity and a real sense of discovery to The Legend of the Walled-In Woman, a haunting realization of an Albanian folk song. Others will have to judge the accuracy of the choir's Albanian pronunciation, but their...
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