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Christopher Warren-Green Bids Farewell to the Charlotte Symphony With a Rousing Beethoven "Ode to Joy"

By Perry Tannenbaum, CVNC -- 

Even back in the early '90s, when Charlotte Symphony struggled to sustain respectable mediocrity, the valedictory concert led by Leo Driehuys in 1993 proved that the orchestra could always rise to the occasion when called upon to perform Beethoven's thrilling Ninth Symphony. Having heard the same ensemble bludgeon Beethoven's "Eroica" to blandness just months earlier, it was hard for me to believe that the inspiration came solely from the composer. I struggled with the answer to this anomaly until I interviewed Driehuys's successor, Peter McCoppin, shortly before his final season at the end of the millennium. Not referencing Beethoven at all, but explaining why he enjoyed his years in Charlotte so thoroughly, McCoppin observed that the Queen City is incredibly fertile ground for choristers and choruses. You just had to count the churches around town to see his point. Not only had the Oratorio Singers of Charlotte brought extra spark to Beethoven's "Choral Symphony," they had also arguably sparked the Charlotte Symphony musicians they were partnering with.

The Oratorios have undergone numerous metamorphoses during the past three decades, at discreet intervals absorbed into Symphony, renamed the Charlotte Symphony Chorus, and eventually set free to seek their own gigs, rebranded once again as the Charlotte Master Chorale. Yet each time it was necessary to muster the instrumental and vocal artillery needed for Beethoven's masterwork - indeed, classical music's masterwork - the Chorale has admirably answered the call. In a recent interview prefacing his valedictory concert as Symphony's music director after 12 fruitful seasons, Christopher Warren-Green revealed that the chorus had been "one of the big incentives for me to come to Charlotte because of the great repertoire that was written for orchestra and chorus." Little wonder, then, that Maestro Warren-Green has chosen to conclude his tenure by including the Master Chorale in his final "Ode to Joy" concert - or that he has already announced that, when he returns this coming December as Symphony's music advisor and conductor laureate, the choir will be in the mix once more as he conducts Handel's Messiah at Knight Theater.

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