Ars Nova Singers Meets Steampunk

By Peter Alexander

It all started at a wedding.

The next concert by Boulder’s adventurous Ars Nova Singers and conductor Thomas Morgan is a departure from the usual. Normally devoted to music of the Renaissance and contemporary times, they will perform music from the Victorian era and some contemporary works that refer to advances in technology from different eras.

That curious and interesting program, titled “Science/Fantasy,” will be presented three times, in Lafayette, Denver and Longmont over the coming weekend (April 4–6; details below). The performers will not be the full Arts Nova ensemble, but a smaller group of 11 singers. To bring out the unique nature of the program, they will wear “Steampunk” costumes borrowed from various sources, including the CU Costume Shop.

Steampunk, if you don’t know, is defined as “a sub-genre of science fiction that incorporates retro-futuristic technology and aesthetics inspired by, but not limited to, 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery.” As such it is often connected to Victorian times and styles. (You can learn more about Steampunk HERE.)

The hallmarks of Steampunk style are gears, goggles, pocket watches and Victorian-style clothing: tailcoats with vests, high collars, top hats, cuffs and corsets—modified by individual taste and creativity. For the Ars Nova concerts, if you and a friend put together your own Steampunk outfits, there is a bonus: one ticket will admit two people in Steampunk costume.

But back to that wedding.

“I was invited a couple of years ago to a Steampunk wedding,” Morgan explains. “The entire bridal party and guests were encouraged to come (in costume), and it was so much fun. The environment suggested to me both Victorian music and music that has a rhythmic and industrial feel to it—anything related to flying machines, exploration—the whole era.”

The appeal of Steampunk style is not lost on Morgan, who will appear in his own costume. But he wants to clarify that the celebration of Victorian culture does not overlook the drawbacks of the era. “Clearly it was an age of exploitation by colonialists, the subjugation of races by other races and women by men,” he says.

“But one of the interesting things about (Steampunk) is, it seeks to redeem the past rather than glorify it. Built into the ‘punk’ part of the word, which is more rebellious and anti-establishment, is looking at what would have happened in that era if things had been more egalitarian.”

The program includes works that are genuinely Victorian, specifically music by Hubert Parry, an English composer who lived during the Victorian era. “He certainly represents the height” of that era musically, Morgan says. His “There is an Old Belief” from Songs of Farewell forms “an encapsulation of the musical ethos of the time. The musical language is really beautiful. It gets close to Mahler in many ways, but for voices.”

From a little earlier in the 19th century are two madrigal-like works by Robert Lucas Pearsall, an English composer of choral music who lived much of his life on the European continent. Ars Nova has previously performed and recorded Pearsall’s “Lay a Garland,” which Morgan describes as “one of the really great eight-part choral pieces.”

The program also includes contemporary music that connects with Steampunk ideas. Morgan says that the opening piece, Jennifer Lucy Cook’s “Time,” “is a fast piece on the concept of time, (selected) because clockworks and gear-driven machines are very much a part of the Steampunk aesthetic.”

“Vessels” by Philip Glass comes from his music for the film Koyaanisqatsi, which visually as well as musically portrays the destruction of the natural world through industrialization, something that blighted many Victorian cities polluted by coal-burning factories. The program also includes music by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Francis Poulenc, among others.

The Victorian fascination with flying machines is represented by two pieces, “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine” by Eric Whitacre and “The Campers at Kitty Hawk” by Michael Dellaira. Whitacre’s piece was written 25 years ago, at the start of the composer’s career, and has become one of his best known works for choir.

Leonardo DaVinci’s sketches for a flying machine:

“It’s a wonderful piece that we haven’t done in a long time,” Morgan says. “A lot of the Victorian writers were interested in Leonardo’s designs and some of those were recreated as people were learning how to fly.”

Morgan reached out to Whitacre about performing his piece in the context of the Steampunk program, and the composer recorded comments that will be played before the performance.

The Steampunk theme “gives us a whole opportunity to play with some of these things,” Morgan says. “We have a couple of staged things that the singers do during the performance.

“It’s an opportunity for us to have a little more fun, as well as mix in some repertoire that we don’t always get a chance to do.”

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“Science/Fantasy”
Ars Nova Singers, Thomas Morgan, conductor

• Jennifer Lucy Cook: “Time”
• Philip Glass: “Vessels” from Koyaanisqatsi
• Ralph Vaughan Williams: “The Vagabond”
• Robert Lucas Pearsall: “Sir Patrick Spens”
  —“Lay a Garland”
• Charles Hubert Hastings Parry: “There is an old belief” from Songs of Farewell
• Francis Poulenc: “Sanglots,” from Banalités
• Bob Chilcott: “Sun, Moon, Sea, and Stars”
• Eric Whitacre: “Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine”
• Michael Dellaira: “The Campers at Kitty Hawk” from USA Stories
• Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley: “Pure Imagination” (arr. Yumiko Matsouka)

7:30 p.m. Friday, April 4, Center for Musical Arts, 200 E. Baseline, Lafayette
5 p.m. Saturday, April 5, St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 2201 Dexter St., Denver
3 p.m. Sunday, April 6, Stewart Auditorium, Longmont

TICKETS