With Soaring Voices, ISS Chamber Choir Fills Venues on Spain Tour

Singing choral works in six languages and a wide variety of musical styles, the Indian Springs School Chamber Choir mesmerized audiences with moving performances in churches and cathedrals in Seville, Granada, Madrid, Avila, and the Royal Monastery of El Escorial during its recent 10-day tour as part of the American Celebration of Music in Spain.

Led by Music Director and ISS alumnus Dr. Tim Thomas ’67 and accompanied by pianist Cindy St. Clair, the 35-member group began its tour by singing to a standing room only crowd at the Church of the Annunciation in Seville, where audience members raced to get the last available chairs to hear the choir sing.

“In Spain, high school students have very few opportunities to join choirs like yours, so hearing you sing is very special here,” tour guide Sylvia Moura told the choir after the performance. “You showed that you are true artists, and the people of Spain do not often have a chance to hear this kind of quality singing by young people your age.”

The choir’s repertoire included Dicebat Jesus by Juan Navarro; O vos omnes by Tomás Luis de Victoria; De tierra lejana venimos (arr. Gary Fry); Cantique de Jean Racine by Gabriel Fauré; Francis Poulenc’s Gloria; Lux Aurumque by Eric Whitacre; Lullay, My Liking by David Willcocks; Vem kan segla förutan vind by Carl-Bertil Agnestig; Adon olam (Uzi Hitman and Oded Ben-Hur; arr. Marsha Bryan Edelman); Little Innocent Lamb (arr. Marshall Bartholomew); My God is a Rock (arr. Alice Parker/Robert Shaw); Personent Hodie (arr. Alice Parker); and Jabula Jesu (arr. Stephen Hatfield).

Following the group’s performance during a mass at the 12th-century Avila Cathedral, churchgoers gathered in front of the choir, saying, “They didn’t seem to be people. It’s as if we were listening to angels.” (“No parecia gente, es como si escucharamos a los angeles.”)

The music director of the acclaimed El Escorial Boys Choir invited the ISS Chamber Choir to sing for his students after attending the choir’s concert at the Church of San Manuel y San Benito in Madrid. “He was so moved by our performance that he brought his remarkably gifted Boys Choir to listen to us the next day at the Royal Monastery of El Escorial, and then in a beautiful exchange, they sang for us,” says Thomas. “They were so confident and secure, so completely in touch with the music. It was the perfect way to end the musical part of the tour.”

To Thomas, who will retire in June 2016 after 36 years as ISS music director, the tour was special not only because it was his last international tour but also because it confirmed that the choir remains a powerful “ambassador”—as Founding Director Doc Armstrong called the group—of Indian Springs.

“At every performance, the first thing that people wanted to know was: ‘Where are you from?’ It was wonderful to be able to take a program, point to the top, and say ‘Indian Springs School, Alabama,’” says Thomas.

“It has been a remarkable experience to work with kids this mature and this focused on excellence and, more importantly, on art,” he remarked as the tour drew to a close. “It has also been meaningful to see our effect on the people who hear us. All of our performances were quite memorable and powerful, but by far the most important thing to me was the overwhelming feeling that there was a strong connection between our singers and their audiences.”