This weekend, after 27 years, Amy Kaiser will direct her final performances with the St. Louis Symphony Chorus. The concert, From The Sea to The Stars, caps off a 53-year career directing choruses of all kinds, from small groups of volunteer singers to the St Louis Symphony Chorus’ 120 vocalists. The April 30 and May 1 concerts will open with the first SLSO performances of the full orchestral version of Jessie Montgomery’s Starburst, followed by choral-orchestral works by Claude Debussy and Ralph Vaughan Williams. We caught up with Kaiser just after her last full choral rehearsal to talk about the performance, her departure, and what comes next.
What can you tell us about the programming for your final concert, From The Sea to The Stars?
Get a guide to the region’s booming music scene
Subscribe to the St. Louis Music newsletter to discover upcoming concerts, local artists to watch, and more across an eclectic playlist of genres.
The first piece in the program is from Jessie Montgomery, which is a St. Louis Symphony commission, and it’s called Starburst. That will be a a piece nobody’s heard, and she’s a wonderful composer. It’ll be interesting to hear how that resonates with the other pieces on the program and ties it all together. The Debussy, of course, has three scenes, and and final one is “Sirens,” who seduced the sailors from the water. It’s a small women’s vocal ensemble, just singing “oohs” and “aaahs,” and it’s a wonderful piece. Stéphane Denève is a master of this French Impressionistic music, so we’re looking forward to working on that with him. But Stéphane also loves the music of Vaughan Williams, and [A Sea Symphony] is Vaughan Williams’ first symphony. It’s a huge chorus orchestra piece composed in about 1900 with poetry by Walt Whitman. The poetry is all about the majesty and the awesome terror of the sea, and the sailors who sail, and the ships, and all the different nationalities and the flags. It’s a very beautiful, gorgeous piece, which is wonderful for the chorus.
That all sounds so exciting.
It’s definitely a very exciting way to end the season. It’s not quite the end of the season, but for me, it’s the end of my season with the chorus. I was going to retire after last year, but really I needed to come back and bring the chorus back together. And I feel so grateful that I could have this and the Mozart Requiem to do this season.
How are you feeling going into your last concert with the St. Louis Symphony Chorus?
I had my last full chorus rehearsal, and now Stéphane takes over [this] week. Tuesday night he’ll work with the chorus alone. Each conductor has one piano rehearsal to hear what they’re doing and share with the singers what he wants from the piece. And then we have two orchestra rehearsals, and then the two performances. So this past Tuesday was my last rehearsal with the chorus alone. And that’s not just the last after 27 years here in St. Louis. It’s the last in 53 years of working as a chorus director. So it’s really a very long time.
When I answer that question, of how do I feel about it, well, I’ve loved doing this for 53 years. It’s wonderful to have all that time and to continue to love doing your work. At the same time, there are certainly things that I’ve had enough of. And, you know, we do know when it’s time and when it’s necessary to move on. So I feel really good about it. I love the people I work with. I love making music with them. I love working with the orchestra and the staff and our wonderful music director. It’s been a very important part of my life, these last 27 years. And of course, I’ve become a St. Louisan in this time, so of course I will stay here and continue to be a patron of the orchestra and be there in the audience.
Do you have any favorite memories of working with the chorus?
Well, I would say every single year has at least one high peak event. There have been very, very many wonderful things. I’ve worked with four different music directors, and each of them has had some fantastic highlights of their career. I haven’t had enough time with Stéphane. I am sad not to have had more time with him. That was really wrecked by the pandemic for me. Of course, we’ve done a number of very exciting tours to Carnegie Hall, but really the concerts here with different music directors and different guest conductors, some of them dear old friends like Nicholas McGegan, have been high point performances for me…These are very special things. And, of course, Nicholas McGegan is coming back next year to work with the chorus also. We’ve done many things with him, so the singers are looking forward to that. The orchestra continues to program great music for the chorus, so the St. Louis Symphony really is the place to be for singers who love a variety of classical music styles.
From the programming it seems that there’s a really beautiful synergy between the chorus and the orchestra itself.
Yes. And we’ve been challenged many times, and we have met those challenges. So I’m very proud of the singers for the work that they do. There’s really some awesome talents, gorgeous voices, with real expert musical training. And many of them have sung in the chorus for many years and were here when I started in 1995. Then every year we have a number of super talented young singers who are just starting what we hope will be a lifelong involvement with choral singing. [There will be] auditions for new singers in June and again in August, and there will be a search for a new director of the chorus, and wonderful music on t
he program for next season.
What do you hope that the future looks like for the St. Louis Symphony Chorus?
I hope that this wonderful programming will continue with the support of the music director, Stéphane Denève, and the artistic administration led by Erik Finley. I think what they’re doing for this search year next year is a wonderful way to demonstrate their commitment to choral repertoire. Some of it, like Messiah, is very familiar. Some of it is brand new. Stéphane will conduct the Poulenc, Stabat Mater, and the final scene from Dialogues of the Carmelites. And they will finally perform Berlioz’s The Damnation of Faust, which was scheduled for March 2020, and which we rehearsed but didn’t get to perform, with the same amazing soloists that had been selected. They’re all coming back. So it’s really fantastic. So yes, that is my hope, and it’s already fulfilled. I just hope that continues, because I want to hear it. I want to be sitting upstairs and listening and hearing gorgeous choral music, including some new pieces that I’ve never done.
It has to be sort of exciting to have this opportunity to, after being a part of it for so long, experience the programs as a listener and get to sit out there in the seats.
Yes, definitely. You know, there’s always new music. Some of the new music that the orchestra is commissioning and premiering is very appealing and fascinating. I think audiences are loving it, and of course these things are all new to me. I go to these concerts all year and I’m always hearing new things, whether it’s the orchestra alone or with the chorus.
What are you going to miss most about working with the SLSO?
It’s the community. It’s live involvement making music with these people. Many of them are wonderful friends, old friends, and I will miss being at home backstage. I’ve been taking some pictures of just the backstage areas, just hanging out there. That’s been such a part of my life for all this time, and I do love it. And I need to continue making music for myself. So I will be playing the piano more and hopefully playing some chamber music with some of my retired friends from the orchestra.
On that note, what’s next for you?
Making music in a different way! Piano chamber music, I’m looking forward to that. It’s different. I will miss the camaraderie of 120 singers and doing the work that I have done for all this time. But I definitely will be making music. I’m going keep going with my tap dancing as long as I can.
Is there anything else you want to share with people?
I think we said a lot. But I kind of don’t understand why everyone doesn’t want to be a choral director, because it is so much fun. It is such joyful work and varied work. And I have never been bored in 53 years of doing this–with volunteer singers, professional singers, small choruses, large choruses, music of all kinds, new music, old music. It’s absolutely a wonderful thing to do. So I feel very happy to be part of that community of choral directors over the years. That’s always going to be a part of me somehow.
