Inside the TCC, as it records its first CD in 5 years
PUTTING IT TOGETHER | Scenes from rehearsals at the Church of the Transfiguration for TCC’s next CD. (Steve Ramos/Dallas Voice)
There are therapists who have struggled for years to do what The Turtle Creek Chorale does in about 15 seconds. In only six measures of the song “Sure On This Shining Night,” the basses and baritones take the assurance of healing to the peaks of their upper ranges. All is healed, all is health, they sing, and the music is imbued with an almost divine power.
“I think we’re the only men’s chorale group who produces that sound,” said Wayne Cavender, who has been a member of the chorale for14 years. “We don’t really know where it comes from. Tim went to San Francisco and couldn’t reproduce the sound there. There’s just something about the chorale that conductors can’t find anywhere else.”
Cavender is referring to Tim Seelig, the chorale’s artistic director for 20 years who moved to conduct the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus. Since Seelig, the chorale has had two more artistic directors — Jonathan Palant and its current leader, Trey Jacobs.
Last week, Jacobs conducted the chorale through two days of recording music for the group’s latest CD — its first in five years — pushing the number of recordings to 39, according to the TCC website. For years, the chorale held the record for being the most recorded men’s chorus in the U.S., and it is still one of the most-recorded.
“I’ve recorded 31 CDs with the chorale,” says Kevin Hodges, TCC’s president, “and this is my 21st year with the group.”
Those recordings helped launch the chorale to international prominence.
“The Turtle Creek Chorale established themselves in the early ‘90s through a series of recordings, and I think that is one of the reasons they are so known and respected,” said Joe Nadeau, artistic director and conductor of Los Angeles Gay Men’s Chorus. “They were able to reach an international audience because their CDs were available, and people could hear what this amazing men’s chorus in Dallas was doing.”
“Amazing” is an adjective that’s often used to describe TCC’s unique sound, and it’s that sound Jacobs is committed to recording again. When Jacobs began the second day of recording inside the Church of the Transfiguration, he played back one of the songs the members had recorded the previous day. The men had nailed a Rachmaninoff piece, “Bogoroditse Devo,” which begins in the higher register for the tenors — complicated by the direction to sing it pianissimo. It’s one of the most widely performed pieces of Russian Orthodox sacred music, and its graceful simplicity is woven with pious reverence. The chorale builds from the pianissimo to a powerful delivery of the word “raduysia” (rejoice), moving the soul and spirit. After listening to their stellar recording, one tenor joked, “Who was that?”
Jacobs told the chorale members he wanted them to hear what they had accomplished. He became emotional as he told them how exemplary their recording was.
“You gave your hearts, and you put so much of yourselves into this piece,” Jacobs told the men. “I wanted you to hear this. This is one of the most beautiful recordings I’ve ever heard, and the world needs to hear it.”
That power and sound hasn’t been replicated anywhere, according to Harry Wooten, director of music at Royal Lane Baptist Church and artistic director of Irving Chorale.
“The chorale holds a completely unique position in the community in their choral sound and their larger philosophical reason for being,” he says. “They have beautiful turns of phrases, and there’s something visceral about their sound.”
In the five pieces the chorale recorded, the men are able to demonstrate that in their 34th year, they’ve lost none of the sound that has made them famous. Artistic directors of other men’s choruses say they’re excited to know TCC is recording again.
“For many of us, the chorale has an amazing sound,” Nadeau says. “If you hear a recording of the chorale, and you don’t know it’s them ahead of time, you can easily tell it’s them. Their strength is creating beautiful, lush music, and they offer an inspiring choral experience unlike anything else.”
Cavender agrees. “I feel like what we do means something to the people we are singing to. I get a sense of accomplishment, and I see what we do as a sort of ministry.”
The CD won’t be released until next year, when additional songs will be added, but fans can still buy any of the previously released CDs.
“That’s one of the things about The Turtle Creek Chorale,” Nadeau says. “You can hear their music everywhere, and who wouldn’t want to?”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition March 14, 2014.