History of the William Baker Festival Singers of Atlanta

William Baker and the Festival Singers
A Quarter Century of Music in Atlanta

Introduction

On Tuesday evening, February 26, 1985, a small cadre of singers met in the choir rehearsal room of the John Wesley United Methodist Church in the Atlanta suburb of Norcross.  Though memories do not concur as to the exact number of singers, it is agreed that there were less than 20.  Since there were no tenors present, one of the basses, a retired college choral conductor, was pressed into service to read the tenor part.

The ensemble was led by founder and music director, William Baker, an ambitious conductor who had been 26 years old for less than two weeks.  He was assisted by co-founder Janis M. Lane, then 30, who would serve as associate music director until 2009, and also by accompanist Cathy Steenwyk Wheeler, then 28.  All of the young leaders were concurrently involved in another Atlanta chorus, The DeKalb Choral Guild, which was created by William Baker in 1978 when he was all of 19 years old.

Baker called his emerging ensemble “The Gwinnett Festival Singers” after the suburban county that would be its home for the first thirteen years of its existence.  Baker and Lane were assisted in their creation of the organization by John and Cathy Wheeler, Michael Blackburn and DeKalb County Music Educator Denese Lorraine Irvin, who died tragically in an automobile accident on February 14, 1985, just days before the first rehearsal.

Though surprising to many followers of the Festival Singers in later years, the chorus was originally established for the purpose of performing sacred classics for chorus and orchestra from a religious perspective.  The first three years of the Festival Singers included an impressive repertoire of masterworks, though the short-form sacred a cappella classics and spirituals that would later form the Festival Singers’ signature repertoire were a part of its programming from the earliest days.

The 1980s

The first performance of the Gwinnett Festival Singers was in May 1985 and included works by Undine Smith Moore, William Dawson, and Nicolai Zingarelli, culminating in the FIVE MYSTICAL SONGS of Ralph Vaughan Williams with guest soloist Gregory Stone Doss. The performing membership of the chorus in the first concert was about two dozen singers.

To build the ensemble toward its first full program season, William Baker led a summer version of the Festival Singers from June-August 1985.  The ensemble repeated some of the short form selections and joined with a professional brass ensemble to perform the John Rutter GLORIA in an August concert at the Calvary Baptist Church in Lilburn, Georgia.

Nearly 50 singers were recruited for the first full season of the Gwinnett Festival Singers (1985-1986) that featured a December performance of the Bach MAGNIFICAT and concluded with three performances of Brahms EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM.  The Brahms work was dedicated in memory of Denese Irvin (1958-1985) who, in the planning sessions before the Festival Singers began rehearsals, was slated to be the soprano soloist.

From its earliest days the Festival Singers nurtured a reputation for diversity and for quality of repertoire and performance.  With nearly all rehearsals and most performances held in Gwinnett County, the Festival Singers were credited in the late 1980s with offering the first performances of many choral standards in the suburb that was known then as one of the fastest-growing communities in the nation.  Classic works like Mendelssohn’s ELIJAH, Bach’s CHRIST LAG IN TODESBANDEN, and Britten’s REJOICE IN THE LAMB were first offered in the community by the Festival Singers during the first five years of the chorus’ existence.

Though the Gwinnett Festival Singers was growing dramatically in repertoire and reputation, its energetic conductor continued his work with the DeKalb Choral Guild.  In late 1987, the leaders of the Festival Singers and the Guild made the decision to conduct a joint concert tour of Great Britain in July 1988.  Performances were scheduled in London, Birmingham, Chester, Bristol and Canterbury.  The performance in Canterbury coincided with the Lambeth Conference and was attended by hundreds of delegates from the Anglican Communion around the world.  The preview concert in Atlanta on the eve of the tour was hailed as a tour de force by Atlanta Constitution classical music critic Derrick Henry who described the sound of the chorus as “sensuous tonal beauty.”

On the off-day of the tour, the members of the chorus were visiting Llandaff Cathedral in Cardiff, Wales, when an of the elderly priest invited them to sing one of their selections.  At first the singers protested that they did not bring their music folders to the tourist outing. The priest answered, “Surely you know at least one or two of your songs in your heart!”

The singers stood in a circle to sing the first selection on the program as a sizeable crowd gathered to listen.  That was followed by the second, and another and another, until all of the program had been sung without music in an impromptu concert.  The chorus sang the remainder of the tour concerts without holding music and, beginning with the 1988-1989 season, made memorized concerts of short form a cappella classics and spirituals the central focus of their repertoire.

The White Hot Growth Years

At the conclusion of the 1988-1989, on the same day as the historic confrontation in China’s Tiananmen Square, the Festival Singers journeyed to Charleston to perform in the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.  When the concert began, the white, unairconditioned, early 19th-century St. Stephens Episcopal Church was mostly filled.

In later years, Music Director William Baker recalled his impressions of the first Charleston concert.  “The audience did not applaud after the first piece, or even after any of the sets.  All I heard behind me was silence, save the continual opening and closing of doors.  The room was very hot since there was no airconditioning, and I was fearful that our singers would be discouraged with audience members slipping out.  Because the audience didn’t respond, I never turned around to see what was really happening.  At last we sang our final piece, William Henry Smith’s setting of the spiritual RIDE THE CHARIOT, with Patty Mathis (now Patty Dontje) as the soloist.  When I cut off the final chord, the audience erupted in thunderous applause.  I turned to see that people had been continuing to come in until the church was completely full to standing room only and dozens more had been listening to the concert through the open doors and windows.”

Thus began the annual tradition that would change the Festival Singers from a local choral ensemble to a regional sensation.  The following year, 1990, the Festival Singers performed two concerts, then four in 1991, each to growing audiences and glowing reviews in newspapers across the region.  On a rainy Sunday afternoon in 1995, the Circular Church in Charleston was so full that audience members were seated on the floors of the aisles and on the stage behind the singers, while hundreds of disappointed concert-goers stood outside the historic building in the rain.  Under an umbrella and attired in his concert tux, William Baker walked down the line of disappointed concert-goers and promised to perform the concert again in its entirety for those who would return two hours later.  After the scheduled performance, the Festival Singers took a short 15 minute break before returning to the stage to sing an unprecedented encore concert to a second capacity audience.

With the exception of 1998-2003, William Baker and the Festival Singers have performed an uninterrupted series of concerts to capacity audiences at Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto.  The performances have earned wide acclaim from music critics and from audience members, many who travel hundreds of miles to Charleston to hear the music of the Atlanta-based chorus.

The ambitious touring schedule of the Festival Singers was not limited to Charleston.  Appearances at conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and the Music Educators National Conference took the chorus to Southeastern venues as widespread as Birmingham, Montgomery, Knoxville, Greenville, Spartanburg, Charlotte, Asheville, Savannah, Macon, and other Southern destinations.

Though the Festival Singers had produced several cassette recordings for sale to members and to audiences at Atlanta-area concerts, the first CD produced for national distribution was called “Live In Concert,” and was released in the fall of 1991.  The CD received mixed reviews in Chorus! magazine and in the Atlanta Constitution, but strong sales opened the door to a second recording in 1992 called Great Day! that was more reflective of the musical advancement of the ensemble.

In 1993, the Gwinnett Festival Singers performed the Requiem of John Rutter in both Atlanta and at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival.  Following the performances, the chorus recorded the popular work on the da Chiesa label, becoming the first American ensemble to do so.  The CD remains the only session recording of a major work by the Festival Singers.

Additional recordings were released under the name Gwinnett Festival Singers: A New Hosanna, concert tracks from the 1994 Piccolo Spoleto Festival, and Give Me Jesus, concert tracks from the 1995 festival.  It was in 1995 that the two most successful recordings were released under the Gwinnett name, True Religion and the holiday album, The Marvel of This Night.  The final CD released under the Gwinnett name, People of God, was recorded in 1997.

The successful recordings led to numerous radio broadcasts on local affiliates including WABE-FM’s Atlanta Music Scene.  Often, the local radio and television stations in tour locations would broadcast concert excerpts and recording clips on their air in addition to interviews with Music Director William Baker and others.  Three national radio programs, The First Art, The Protestant Hour, and the Sounds of Majesty broadcasted selections by the Festival Singers regularly.  Portions of the 1997 Christmas Atlanta Festival were broadcast on National Public Radio’s Performance Today.

Though Music Director William Baker shifted the focus of the organization from major works to short form a cappella selections around 1988, the chorus continued to perform occasional masterworks, most often with full orchestra.  These included the Easter portion of Handel’s Messiah, the Glorias of Vivaldi and Rutter, and the Durufle Requiem, which was performed at Piccolo Spoleto in 1994 with members of the Charleston Symphony, along with many others.

In 1988, the Festival Singers established a composer-in-residence relationship with Atlanta writer Mark Gresham that resulted in the creation of several new works, including settings of the traditional Gloria, Magnificat and Te Deum texts along with numerous short works, several of which were created in collaboration with popular science fiction author Ray Bradbury.

The Festival Singers created a number of signature events during their white-hot years of early growth.  Christmas Atlanta was first performed in 1989 at the Norcross United Methodist Church.  Inspired by the nearly 100-year-old Christmas at St. Olaf program of readings and music by varied ensembles, and by the local Christmas With Robert Shaw, the concert featured the Festival Singers, a community children’s chorus, a professional-level instrumental ensemble, a soloist, and varying other musical contributors.  Collaborators over the years have included the Atlanta Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Midtown Brass, the Gwinnett Young Singers, the Young Singers of Callanwolde, the Northside Young Singers, the Voices of Grace, the Northside Festival Singers, organists Sue Goddard, Michael Crowe and Trey Clegg, and soloists Arietha Lockhart and Laura English Robinson among many others.  Christmas Atlanta remains one of the region’s most beloved holiday traditions.

From its earliest days the Festival Singers has been supportive of great causes in the wider community.  From the first season the chorus has sponsored an annual benefit concert to raise funds for organizations that serve urgent human needs.  These have included AIDAtlanta, Genesis Shelter, March of Dimes, Dream House for Medically Fragile Children, Rett Syndrome Foundation, and Hosea Williams Feed the Hungry among many others.

To support the growth of arts organizations across the metropolitan Atlanta area, William Baker created a number of festival concerts that have attracted thousands of listeners over the years.  These have included the Gwinnett Festival of Music, the Midtown Community Festival of Music, and the Marietta Festival of Music.  Other events have included choral workshops and festival with noted guest conductors such as Alice Parker, Dale Warland, Moses Hogan, Andre Thomas and Anton Armstrong.

Years of Transition

Transition and triumph for the Gwinnett Festival Singers best describes the events of 1998. When William Baker and Janis Lane designed the chorus in 1985, they developed an organizational charter that gave a high-level of input to an independent board of directors called the “Executive Committee.”  In the three year period that began with the chorus’ tremendous artistic success in 1994-1995, the Executive Committee and the Music Staff began to grow in different directions regarding the goals of the organization. These differences ultimately resulted in a split in the organization in April 1998, with the music staff and a number of singers in one group and the Executive Committee and other singers in another.

In July, now under the name William Baker Festival Singers, the chorus performed an acclaimed concert in Spivey Hall for the Georgia Convention of American Choral Directors Association. That concert ushered in an era of four years when the chorus operated as a semi-professional project ensemble in Atlanta. The Executive Committee-led group reformulated as a chorus called The Atlanta Sacred Chorale, which continues to have a strong presence in the Atlanta community.

The Festival Singers and the Choral Foundation

In 1990, as the Gwinnett Festival Singers was building a reputation for excellence across the region, William Baker was contacted by Composers Resources and the Music Department of Georgia State University to present a concert of works by Atlanta-area composers, including Mark Gresham, Curtis Bryant, John Noel Wheeler, and Tristen Foison.  An enthusiast for new music, the conductor agreed to put together an ensemble of 25 voices from the membership of the Gwinnett Festival Singers.  The ensemble drawn from GFS was called “The William Baker Festival Singers.”

In the summer of that same year, members of the Gwinnett Festival Singers and the DeKalb Choral Guild (still directed by Baker) decided to assemble a non-auditioned summer-only chorus to sing lighter repertoire and to keep member’s vocal skills sharp during the traditional choral off-season.  Expectations were not high for the casual ensemble when William Baker placed a membership ad in local newspapers.  The response, however, was amazing.  Over 80 singers gathered for the first rehearsal in June 1990 and a new choral ensemble, called The Summer Singers of Atlanta, was born.

Working with choral enthusiasts from across the Atlanta region, and buoyed by the continual growth of each of his musical enterprises, in late 1990 Baker created an organization called The William Baker Choral Foundation.  The Choral Foundation included the Summer Singers of Atlanta, the William Baker Festival Singers project chorus, and the conductor’s growing schedule of clinics, workshops, consulting and guest conducting appearances.

The Summer Singers of Atlanta grew in both enrollment and artistic depth with each passing year.  In the fourth year, 1993, the chorus relocated their rehearsal and concert home from Emory Presbyterian Church to Peachtree Christian Church in the heart of Midtown Atlanta.  That same year the Summer Singers began presenting a choral/orchestral masterwork as a central part of its programming.  Concerts have included many classics from standard choral repertoire, including Vivaldi’s GLORIA, Brahms REQUIEM and LIEBESLIEDER WALTZES, Mozart’s GREAT MASS IN C MINOR, REQUIEM, SOLEMN VESPERS and MISSA BREVIS, Schubert’s MASS IN G, Haydn’s THE CREATION, and the NINTH SYMPHONY of Beethoven.  On average, 125-175 singers have been a part of the Summer Singers of Atlanta tradition each year.

The William Baker Festival Singers performed numerous concerts in Spivey Hall as the “special projects arm” of Gwinnett Festival Singers under the auspices of the Choral Foundation.  The programs included performances of Stravinsky: SYMPHONY OF PSALMS, Rutter: THE FALCON, Hindemith: CHANSONS, Brahms: REQUIEM and many other works in annual performances.  In 1992 the William Baker Festival Singers and Chamber Orchestra presented an entire concert of the works of Atlanta composer Mark Gresham.

As a result of the crisis of 1998, the tradition of the Gwinnett Festival Singers was enfolded into the Choral Foundation and continued as The William Baker Festival Singers.

The Project Chorus Years

In July 1998, Music Director William Baker was offered the position of Music Director for the second largest Presbyterian congregation in the United States, The Village Church in Prairie Village, Kansas, a close-in suburb of Kansas City.  In that church music was the primary source of income for the Baker family, the position was accepted on the condition that the work of the Choral Foundation would continue under the leadership of a commuting conductor.

The Baker family moved to northeast Kansas in August 1998.  During the years from 1998-2002, William Baker commuted from his new home in Kansas for weekly rehearsals of the Summer Singers of Atlanta, and for the occasional rehearsals of the William Baker Festival Singers.

During this era, the William Baker Festival Singers in Atlanta offered project-chorus events.  Among the most successful were a performance of French works with AGO Award Winning organist Ernest Oelkers that included the REQUIEM of Durufle, and an acclaimed performance of Schubert, Haydn and Mozart works called “A Night in Old Vienna.”

In the meantime, the Choral Foundation began to establish a foothold in Kansas City.  The William Baker Festival Singers of Kansas City began rehearsals in October 1998 as a year-round ensemble specializing in short-form sacred a cappella classics and spirituals.  In the first eleven seasons of the WBFS-Kansas City, the group has toured from Chicago to New Orleans, and from central Kansas to Atlanta.  In recent years the chorus has performed both the ST. MATTHEW PASSION and the MASS IN B MINOR of Bach, becoming the only Kansas City-based ensemble in over two decades to perform either work.

The Summer Singers of Kansas City was added in 1999, built on the same model as the Summer Singers of Atlanta a decade before.  Ranging in membership from 100-140 singers, the Kansas City version of the Summer Singers has brought that tradition to the heartland.

The Restoration

With the energy streams of the Summer Singers, the former Gwinnett Festival Singers, and the William Baker Festival Singers flowing from two metropolitan areas coming together, the maturing William Baker began to conceive a vision of a national organization to support the growth of the choral art.  In a note to the membership of the Festival Singers in September 2003 he said, “I have come to see the enterprise we call the Choral Foundation as my life’s work, and I will endeavor to lay aside all other professional interests to build it for a future that will long outlive me.”

To that end, in 2003 Baker moved from a career as a full time church musician leading the Choral Foundation part-time to full-time employee and builder of the organization.

The William Baker Festival Singers in Atlanta had begun a year-round schedule with the 2002-2003 season, but still functioned as a project chorus.  Beginning with the 2003-2004 season, the chorus returned to a weekly rehearsal schedule and a full slate of a cappella concerts as a continuation of the tradition of the former Gwinnett Festival Singers first created in 1985.

Rehearsals were moved to Sunday evenings and an office was re-established in Atlanta.  Baker began his weekly year-round commute to Atlanta in September 2003 that continues as his schedule to the present day.  Though he continued to hold a part time church position until the end of 2008, beginning in 2003 Baker made the work of the Festival Singers and the Choral Foundation his primary vocation.

The 2003-2004 season saw the renewal of many Festival Singers traditions, including Christmas Atlanta, the annual benefit concert, and an annual performance of a major choral/orchestra masterwork.  The season was highlighted in May 2004 by the first performance of the Festival Singers at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival since 1997.  A standing room-only audience gathered in the Grace Episcopal Church in Charleston, the same historic building where earlier incarnations of the chorus had scored many musical triumphs during the 1990s.  The thunderous applause of the audience and the tear-filled eyes of chorus and audience members added an unforgettable dimension to the historic occasion.  The concert formed the live-in-concert CD, Amazing Grace, which was the Festival Singers’ best selling recording for a number of years.

A New Era

The five years from 2004-2009 have been a period of explosive artistic growth and steady development for the William Baker Festival Singers.  Each year the musicianship of the ensemble has grown.  The last three years have brought the most balanced and skilled ensembles in the organization’s storied history.  Major works have included Bernstein’s CHICHESTER PSALMS, Stravinsky’s SYMPHONY OF PSALMS, Durufle’ REQUIEM, Kodaly’s LAUDES ORGANI, Haydn’s TE DEUM, Vivaldi’s BEATUS VIR, Faure’s REQUIEM, and the world premier of William Dreyfoos’ SONGS OF THE HOLOCAUST.

Still focused on memorized concerts of a cappella folk songs, spirituals and classics, the scope and diversity of the Festival Singers’ signature repertoire continues to expand.  Performances by the chorus at Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival continue to attract larger and larger audiences.  One of the 2008 performances attracted so many concert-goers that dozens of music lovers wishing to hear the concert had to be turned away.

Ellen Dressler Moryl, Director of the Office Cultural Affairs in Charleston, said this following the 2008 concert by the Festival Singers:

“The William Baker Festival Singers is one of the very finest choral groups of any size or genre in the Southeastern United States and beyond. Under the direction of their founder, William O. Baker   -a consummate artist in his own right, performances are excellent, breathtaking and inspiring. Piccolo Spoleto audiences (usually standing room only) have enjoyed their concerts for the past 15 (or so) years. I recommend them enthusiastically and without qualification.”

Following the 2009 concert during the Charleston Festival at Franke at Seaside, Emily Remington, retired conductor of the Charleston Symphony Singers Guild said, “This is the most polished Festival Singers’ chorus ever…hands down…and that is saying a lot!”

A Quarter Century and Beyond

The upstart chorus of less than 20 singers that gathered in a Norcross choir room on February 26, 1985, is now the flagship ensemble of a national organization that will open the 2009-2010 season with up to a dozen choral ensembles involving some 600 men, women, youth and children meeting in three states.  These include both the Kansas City and Atlanta ensembles of the William Baker Festival Singers led by the founder, along with the Northside Festival Singers based in Alpharetta, Georgia under the direction of Don Brainerd, and the Cobb Festival Singers based in Marietta, Georgia under the direction of Lynn Swanson Fowler.  New choruses for dedicated teens have been created in Olathe, Kansas, and Columbus, Georgia, giving the organization four distinct constituent communities.  The Choral Foundation also sponsors an aggressive Student Intern program and a music publishing house, the Kansas City-based Amber Waves Music Publishing (www.AmberWavesPublishing.com).

The 25th Anniversary Season of the Festival Singers will open in Gwinnett County where the tradition began in 1985 as the WBFSA joins with the Gwinnett Symphony Orchestra for a gala performance of Brahms EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM, the ambitious work that concluded the first full season in 1985-1986.

In addition to concerts of a cappella repertoire and numerous festival collaborations, all four Festival Singers will meet in Atlanta on February 21, 2010 for a gala concert celebrating the anniversary of the first rehearsal.  Alumni from the 25 concert season will join the combined choruses in five mass choir selections conducted by Dr. Baker.  Before culminating the season with another performance at Charleston’s Piccolo Spoleto Festival, the William Baker Festival Singers will join with full orchestra and distinguished soloists for a performance on May 1, 2010 of Bach’s epic ST. JOHN PASSION in the South’s most prestigious venue, Spivey Hall.

The music of the William Baker Festival Singers has been hailed by critics and audiences alike in hundreds of concerts, recordings and broadcasts.  Observing that the Festival Singers perform concerts from memory, Carol Furtwangler of the Charleston Post & Courier said, “It is not just that the Festival Singers perform without music scores…no, they sing from their hearts.”