Sondheim Chorale: Congressional Chorus
Congressional Chorus offers a chorale tribute to Sondheim
No matter how many musicals by — or even musical revues about — Stephen Sondheim you’ve watched, David Simmons is confident that you haven’t seen anything like what the Congressional Chorus will offer this Saturday, June 6.
“People who have seen Sondheim revues, so to speak, usually are seeing [at most] 12 people singing,” says Simmons, who adds that a full production of a Sondheim show, such as last year’s Sunday in the Park with George at Signature Theatre, usually tops out at 25 performers on stage. By contrast, “when we close out the first half of our concert on Saturday night, it’ll be almost 100 singers with an 11-piece orchestra. The two final numbers in the concert will be 150 choristers.”
The artistic director of Congressional Chorus, Simmons has long wanted to do a choral celebration of Sondheim, often billed as Broadway’s greatest living composer and one that Simmons has been a fan of “basically my entire life.” But the timing seemed especially right this year, with more choral arrangements of his work becoming available in the past few years and especially after the recent popularity of the Meryl Streep-led film version of Into The Woods.
During “Sondheim, Sondheim, Sondheim: A Choral Celebration of an American Master,” the organization’s American Youth Chorus — ranging in age from eight to 14 — will perform selections from Into The Woods, and the senior citizens in the group’s Northeast Senior Singers will sing from Gypsy. All told, including the main 100-member chorus, “it’s going to be a huge age-range of singers, almost a 90-year-span.” The music itself spans four decades, with hits from 1957’s West Side Story to 1994’s Passion.
Even the venue, the National City Christian Church, makes this concert stand out. “It’s a huge, huge venue [with] acoustics that are super live,” Simmons says. “It’s a very different feel than you get in a small theater.”
For Simmons, it all translates into the final product: “This is a completely different spin on Sondheim.”
The Congressional Chorus performs Saturday, June 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the National City Christian Church at 5 Thomas Circle NW. Tickets are $25. Call 202-399-7993 ext. 182 or visit congressionalchorus.org.
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