Steve Schwartz:

>Last Sunday, a friend asked if I'd like to hear a Bach cantata at
>Emmanuel Church in Boston, something the church apparently does every
>week, usually under the direction of Craig Smith ...  service contained
>two motets by John Harbison (also on Emmanuel's music board)

This has been going on, with Smith and Harbison included, for decades.
I heard the premiere of Harbison's Violin Concerto there about twenty
years ago, with Harbison's wife the soloist in a version, if I am not
mistaken, significantly different from the one eventually recorded.

>The choir blew me away.  It handled the score's difficulties as if
>they simply didn't exist.  The music, at low dynamic and thickly packed,
>separated into cogent lines and dramatic argument.  Intonation was superb,
>the tone light, clear, and of a piece.  No one just planted both feet
>and wailed.  No one singer stuck out, not even soloists.  Every part
>knew when to come forward in the texture and when to step back.  Indeed,
>I've heard choral CDs that didn't come up to Emmanuel's technical level
>live....The bottom line is Emmanuel does this sort of thing every week.
>The more I think about it, the more mysterious it becomes.

I don't have any recent information, so I don't know this for sure, but
I assume those same singers have been going at this together so long
that they sing together as a long-standing string quartet plays.

>Maybe Boston really is the hub of the universe.

You should stick around there a while.  There are tons of music of all
sorts and it will not cost you a fortune.

Jim Tobin