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Weaving Eternity is the title of the latest recording issued by NOTUS, the premier choral ensemble at the Jacobs School of Music of Indiana University under its director, Dominick DiOrio. The recital consists of first recordings of music by five gifted composers, each of whom receives a superb presentation. The ensemble was originally founded in 1980 as the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, but was renamed after the Greek god of the south wind upon DiOrio’s assumption of its directorship in 2013. Under his leadership, the group has gained international renown, becoming one of only 24 choirs invited to perform a concert at the 12th World Symposium on Choral Music in Auckland, New Zealand in 2020 (an event that fell victim to the Covid pandemic that arose that year). The group has given numerous performances at the American Choral Directors Association national and regional conferences and has been heard in Carnegie Hall.

The present recording marks the third NOTUS has produced, but the first one issued only as a digital link, which may be accessed at https://www.navonarecords.com/catalog/nv6772/.

The program begins with Charting the World by Dale Trumbore, a work that backs up the chorus with an ensemble comprised of flute and string quartet. This composer, new to me, is based in Los Angeles, but her compositions have been heard throughout the United States and abroad, including a performance by the Chicago Symphony’s MusicNOW ensemble. She has received a number of awards including the ACDA’s inaugural Raymond W. Brock Competition and an ASCAP Morton Gould Award. From the opening undulating violin line of the ensemble of Charting, I was captivated by the beautiful sounds created by this composer. The mysterious and evocative introduction by an instrumental ensemble comprised of flute and string quartet splendidly sets up the entrance of the chorus which continues the splendiferous lines and harmonies that give firm evidence of Trumbore’s skill in writing effectively for the vocal medium. Indeed, she proves there is much worthwhile music yet to be written in the tonal medium, and she would seem to be a protégé of Randall Thompson and other masters of the American choral tradition. The silken sound of the blend of voices achieved by DiOrio is most remarkable.

The Canticum Psalmi Falsum of Gabriel Jenks is a rather more spirited work and contains spiky rhythms and gentle dissonances that immediately evoke interest in the listener. Enhancing the spikiness are interjections of rather percussive chords in the instrumental ensemble comprised of harp, percussion and piano, the former performed by the composer himself. The choral writing is largely homophonic here, and I find particular interest in the composer’s exploration of unexpected tonal centers and in his rhythmic vitality and skillful interplay between instruments and chorus. Jenks is Associate Professor of Music in Composition at Indiana, and his music has been heard at many important venues, including Carnegie Hall and the Tanglewood Music Center. This work has piqued my interest to seek out more of his music. The last movement of the work is placed after the end of Popping Bubbles, and I’m not sure why it was split in two this way. Regardless, I’ll mention here that it achieves a wonderful effect through its joyful and optimistic spirit, one that rather belies the meaning of the title that translates as “False Psalm Song.” This exuberant movement sounds as though it could be a setting of one of the true joyful Psalms—No. 100, for instance.

Coming after the busy Canticum, the Blühende Bäume (Blooming Trees) of Zanaida Stewart Robles provides a bit of respite, and features a subset of NOTUS, namely seven of its members in solo roles, supported by a string quintet. The work opens with the currently fashionable device of filled in chords (e.g., triads augmented with pitches between their notes), but the composer does not overuse this device. A good bit of the mystery of the opening work is heard here, too, but variety of texture, rhythmic freedom and dynamic range serve to keep the listener engaged throughout. I found the piece captivating and rewarding as a result.

Following this work is Popping Bubbles by long-time Jacobs School of Music composition professor, Don Freund, whose music I know well due to having heard many of his works in live performance in several venues around the country, as well as owning many of them on commercial and private recordings. The imagination he brings to his music is unsurpassed among contemporary composers and rarely equaled, not only in that parameter, but also in his ability to write highly successful works in a multitude of disparate styles. In every work I’ve heard by this American master, he keeps the listener on his toes, trying to imagine in which direction he’ll be led next. These qualities are on full display in the present a capella choral work. From its outset, Freund creates new colors in the vocal medium, including its opening that features soprano and bass soloists on the note G. This diad three octaves apart is “filled in” with the full alto and tenor sections singing divisi with gently dissonant chords.

There are settings of four poems by Emily Bobo in this 12-minute choral cycle. “Sweethearts” remembers a girl’s kiss under her grandma’s tree memorialized by her boyfriend’s having engraved a heart into its trunk. “Baby’s First Birthday” is a virtuosic (in terms of both composition and execution by the performers) work in which the chaotic character of the event is splendidly captured in the music. Along the way, the composer divides all four vocal parts throughout the movement and uses some splendid effects including one wherein he combines spoken parts with sung ones. “The Wall of Mexico” examines the difference between social and economic classes south of the border and the ways the two classes affect each other. In this movement, Freund cleverly represents the two classes by pitting the bulk of the chorus, singing only on sustained pitches, against four soloists (one from each voice category) plus a “ghost trio” of three female voices, that punctuate the sustained pitches with erratic and unpredictable (and generally loud) gestures. The final poem, “This is just to say,” is a mostly up-tempo and highly syncopated and rather jocular piece that again juxtaposes a subset of three mezzo-sopranos against the full chorus. If the piece is the most “traditional” of the four, it is no less effective and imaginative for it and closes Freund’s cycle with a wallop.

All in all, this work is one of the most distinctive and effective contemporary a capella choral works I’ve ever heard. Technically, its demands (via its highly complex sonorities and rhythms) mean that only a top group could pull it off convincingly, and DiOrio and his NOTUS have done just that, something I could confirm since the composer graciously supplied me with a score of the work. There are precious few vocal ensembles in any country that could achieve what DiOrio and NOTUS have in this work—and the others—in this recital.

Dominick DiOrio himself is a distinguished and accomplished composer, specializing (as far as I know) in choral works, of which I’ve heard several, and each of which is most expertly and idiomatically written. His Weaving Eternity was written in tribute to Otis Murphy, Professor of Saxophone at Jacobs School of Music, and a longtime personal friend (for whom I have written several works myself), and indeed, it opens with an extended solo for the alto member of the saxophone family. Shortly, saxophone is joined by piano, marimba and solo strings, and then the chorus that sings a text by poet Jacqueline Goldfinger. Finding no text included in the notes, I can only guess at its substance, but if the life-affirming, even glorious, music is any indication, the text is optimistic as well (my hearing is not good enough to discern most sung words any longer). A central section is a good bit more introspective and allows Murphy to become the soloist in a concerto-like setting, giving him plenty of opportunity to display his musical and technical skills, which are some of the most substantial of any saxophonist I’ve heard—and I’ve heard hundreds by now. I’ve always wondered—and do even more with this exemplary composition—why more composers have not combined saxophone and chorus, as the saxophone is one of the most singing of all instruments, and its parallels to the human voice have been recognized by others. In short, this substantial work forms a fine and fitting close to one of the most enjoyable choral programs I’ve encountered in years, given the varied and uniformly fine music offered, the ne plus ultra performances of it on the part of both chorus and instrumentalists, the tight direction and beautiful recorded sound. All of these together impel me to give my highest recommendation of this recording to anyone who loves fine choral singing as I do. I urge any fellow aficionados of this art to acquire and hear this recording at their first opportunity.