In Praise of Song: The Masterworks Chorale of Carroll County prepares an ambitious program, climaxing the group’s 30th year

Written By Patricia Rouzer

“Twenty timid toads, trying to trot to Trenton”

Outside a Winters Mill High School classroom, an unsuspecting passerby, hearing 75 adults inside seriously singing the silly little ditty, might think we are collectively abusing a forbidden substance; or maybe that we are just a little batty.

He might be right about the “little batty” part unless he knew the ditty was an exercise in enunciation. Members of the Masterworks Chorale of Carroll County spend three and a half hours weekly during each of the spring and fall concert seasons learning challenging music, much of it sung in foreign tongues.

For instance: The daunting German text of “Ode to Joy,” the chorale finale from Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. It and Leonard Bernstein’s haunting Chichester Psalms (sung in Hebrew) compose the repertory for the chorale’s spring concert, to be held on May 18th at 7 p.m. in McDaniel College’s Baker Memorial Chapel.

The concert is special. First, it marks the conclusion of the organization’s 30th anniversary year. And three decades of continuous existence is no mean feat for a group that relies almost exclusively on volunteer labor and financial support from the community.

Members plead with local businesses and patrons for sponsorships. We apply for grants. We hound friends to buy cookie dough to help cover expenses. Just so that twice a year we can perform, with professional instrumentalists, some of the world’s most moving and remarkable choral music.

Second, the chorale has been invited by the Columbia Symphony Orchestra to sing the Beethoven in Columbia with them in April, joining forces with the McDaniel College Choir and the Peabody Preparatory Children’s Chorus.

Despite its name, the organization is not bound exclusively to Carroll County. In 30 years its members have sung at Georgetown University and the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Cathedral of Mary, Our Queen, the Hampton Mansion and Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore. Two summer international choral festivals — one in Stowe, Vermont, the other in St. Johns, Newfoundland — selected it to participate in recent years. It is now entertaining the possibility of organizing a trip to a festival abroad.

Masterworks, formerly called the Choral Arts Society of Carroll County, has been conducted through the years by exceptional musicians, starting with its founder, David Kreider.

Dr. Margaret Boudreaux is its current leader. Smart, witty and demanding, she manages a minor miracle each concert, pulling the singers together in a single dress rehearsal with an orchestra of professionals to produce a polished performance.

Dr. Boudreaux is fun to sing with and fun to know. She is intellectually honest and down to earth. Under her leadership, the chorale’s numbers have swollen dramatically. On the music faculty at McDaniel, Margie nonetheless enjoys working with a group of amateurs, most of whom have been on the far side of campus life for years.

She studies the music and selects the repertory carefully, based on her deep understanding of the singers’ capabilities. She unfailingly gets the best from them; sometimes much more than its individuals believe they capable of contributing.

I began singing with the Masterworks Chorale 15 years ago. I have watched it dwindle to 20 singers and blossom to more than 80. I have seen people of all ages, colors, religions and widely diverse interests, educational and vocational backgrounds come together as a coherent group to create something none of us can craft on our own. When you realize how complex and demanding much of the music is, you may understand the depth of each individual’s commitment.

Ours is an unauditioned group. Although we have a smattering of trained musicians, the vast majority of us are amateurs with varying degrees of training, if any. No one who wants to join in our music-making is turned away.

Despite the rigors of the scores — – by such geniuses as Bach, Mozart, Durufle, Faure, Rutter, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Handel, Orff and Hayden – – people continue for many seasons, drawn not only by the music, but by camaraderie of their fellow singers.

And we are not just singers of classical “standards.” We have brought new works to our community. With the Children’s Chorus of Carroll County we last year performed a work by composer Rebecca Oswald that we jointly commissioned. Twice we have sung new works by local composer Garth Baxter, a member of the McDaniel College faculty. In fact, we performed Baxter’s composition, “Still Falls the Rain,” based on the Edith Sitwell poem of the same name, in last fall’s concert. It was exquisitely demanding. It was eloquently beautiful.

There is great joy in making this music, even for an amateur; maybe especially for an amateur. It is, I suppose, the same joy of creation that a sculptor must feel in drawing life from a block of stone or a painter feels when canvas sings with color under his brush. And there is something almost mystical about putting the music together, working hard to produce just one performance – – then wiping the slate clean in anticipation of the next.

Invariably, when mingling in the sea of audience members after a performance I hear someone say, “I didn’t know there was a group like this in Carroll County.” And judging from the reactions of our audiences, we’re pretty good.

Consider this your invitation to join us as sponsor, audience member or even singer. We have dozens of those “toad” things with which to loosen your jaw. In fact, you could join us in a rousing rendition of “Who washed Washington’s wooly white underwear when Washington’s washer woman went westÉ”