Ars Nova Singers: 40 Years of Music Beyond Words

(This article originally appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on Sunday, August 31)

Q & A with Ars Nova’s Visionary Artistic Director, Tom Morgan

Tom Morgan, on the top of Colorado’s highest summit, Mount Elbert. The co-founder and Artistic Director of Ars Nova Singers reflects on four decades of music and leading one of the region’s premier choirs. The Boulder-based professional ensemble launches its 40th “Ruby” Anniversary Season this fall.

Q.    You started Ars Nova Singers in 1986, and nearly four decades later, the ensemble continues to produce a wealth of impressive programming and is flourishing. What inspired you to start it in the first place, and what do you think makes it different from other choirs around Colorado?

Tom Morgan: The co-founder of Ars Nova Singers is my longtime friend and Boulder alto, Amy French. She and I sang together in the Boulder Bach Festival chorus in the “Bach 300” year of 1985 (300th anniversary of his birth). In discussing the local/regional choral scene at the time, we identified the possibility of creating a new, selectively auditioned ensemble and performing repertoire largely outside of what other groups were doing. I was completing my master’s degree in music composition at the time, so I’ve always been interested in contemporary music. My other areas of particular interest were medieval and Renaissance music. So the name “Ars Nova Singers” (“new art” in Latin) came to the fore as a possibility, as it addresses both of these areas of interest. The term “ars nova” is used by musicologists to describe an era of music history that started in the 14th century (with polyphonic music and more complex rhythms than plainsong). The term also implies an interest in “new art,” and new music continues to play a central role in our mission and repertoire.

Another way in which Ars Nova Singers is unique in the region is that we have two full-time staff positions: Artistic Director and Executive Director. We also have a part-time marketing person, and a staff presently of 14 professional singers (out of our 42-voice regular full ensemble). This greatly assists in implementing our mission and vision.

Q.     Coming up with fresh ideas every season can’t be easy — how do you keep things creative and exciting year after year? What keeps you driven and inspired along the way?

TM:  I feel we have to keep stretching ourselves, both artistically and conceptually, in this rapidly more-interconnected larger world. Audiences and listeners have access to so much high-quality content from around the world, including live concerts and recordings.  On the other side of the coin: there’s still nothing that can compare to the in-person, in-community experience of live music, and very few art forms can convey the depth and expression possible by the human voice. So, it’s inspiring to me to connect both of these worlds.

My other major motivation is finding inspiring collaborations. Looking back at the last couple of decades in particular, this has encompassed a really broad range: from a bluegrass band to a saxophone quartet; from full orchestras (the Boulder Phil and the Colorado Music Festival, for example) to string and chamber orchestras; from a Grammy-winning solo cellist to an amazing virtuoso pianist; from the Kronos Quartet to solo guitar. Equally inspiring have been collaborations across disciplines: dance, literature, visual art, and theatre; this season with FACE Vocal Band (an a cappella rock ensemble); and last year even with the Aspen Historical Society.

On October 17th and 18th we’ll be presenting and sharing the stage with the internationally renowned English ensemble VOCES8 (below), in their only Colorado performances this year.

Q.     What other performances or projects over these 40 years are particularly memorable to you?

TM:  Our Shared Visions project stands out as among the most meaningful and satisfying of our projects, so much so that we’ve decided to undertake it every two years. The idea is to create several ‘chains of inspiration’ across disciplines, using Colorado artists, and culminating in the creation and performance of new choral works.

For example, our current Shared Visions 4 project launches this year. Last spring, we identified seven Colorado visual artists, and each of these artists submitted three works for an online art gallery that is available for three months this summer (June 1 to September 1). The gallery is made available for Colorado poets and writers, who then look through the artworks and create new poetry based on what inspires them. In the early fall, we will gather all of this poetry into an anthology (along with the associated artworks) and give this to four Colorado composers. The composers will then select what inspires them from the available works and create new music for voices.

In the spring of 2026, our choir will rehearse and perform these works. At the performance, we gather all the artists together: the visual art is projected, the poets read their works, and the choir performs the pieces. It’s hard to describe the gratification, validation, and connection this provides to all involved. It seems especially impactful to the visual artists; they could not have imagined – when sitting alone in their studios creating the visual art – that someday in the future people would SING their piece!

Q.    What is the one piece in the choral repertoire that you’ve programmed the most? Why have you repeated it, and what inspires you about it?

TM:  One that immediately comes to mind is Thomas Tallis’ 40-voice remarkable motet Spem in alium, composed in about 1570. In an era dominated by polyphony for three to six voices, music written specifically to challenge the prevailing convention is fascinating to me. Why would a composer go to such remarkable extremes? Why invest considerable time, thought, and energy into the creation of this multi-voice work? The answer is made clear in the work itself: to explore and inhabit an entirely new world of sound. Using techniques common to music for small forces, Tallis sought not just to extend the possibilities of polyphony a little bit, but to create something wholly new: a music based not so much on the development of melody and harmony, but on the expressive possibilities of textures, densities, and movement. It’s also a wonderful exercise for the singers, requiring a unique level of independence and confidence. I love most multi-divisi works, as there are almost always new connections to find, new things to hear.

Q.    Talk about legacy. What lasting impact do you want your work with Ars Nova to have on others and the world around you? What will echo beyond your time here?

TM: I am very grateful that the vision and mission of Ars Nova Singers will continue after my tenure as Artistic Director. (And no! I’m not retiring yet…I’m having too much fun doing this!) Thanks to a very generous donor and a very successful Endowment campaign, Ars Nova Singers made my position full-time in July of 2021. I’m ecstatic to be able to focus my efforts and energy exclusively on this mission for the remainder of my professional career – and someday to be a part of turning over the dream and the mission to a new generation of choral musicians. Ars Nova Singers will survive and flourish far into the future; that’s a very rare thing in the choral world, and I’m grateful for this to be my legacy.

We plan, gather, prepare, invest, organize, strategize, prioritize, and rehearse, in order to send the vibrations we create into the world. Sometimes they come back to us, in unexpected, beautiful ways. I hope you can join us for our Ruby season!