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Reaching For The Stars

April 16, 2024

“The Impossible Dream” showcases Bosque Chorale singing diversity of styles with popular mainstream songs for Spring show led by Maestro Anavitarte for 20th time

CLIFTON – “Overture, curtains, lights. This is it, the night of nights No more rehearsing and nursing a part.” And with those opening lines from the Bugs Bunny theme song “This Is It” the audience instantly knew that this evening’s performance by the Bosque Chorale was going to be different. For those growing up with Bugs Bunny and the cast of Looney Tunes characters on Saturday mornings recalled Bugs and Daffy carousing across a stage in musical revue style with their skimmers, bow ties and walking sticks.

From that moment on, the chorale delighted the audience with their spring concert April 11 in the Frazier Performance Hall of the Bosque Arts Center. Once again and for the 20th time, Maestro David Anavitarte took the guests on a musical journey, entitled “The Impossible Dream.” The journey took the chorale to new heights, reaching for the stars – the stars that initially sang the popular songs.

The choir once more showed their versatility, ability and desire to do their maestro proud, singing a diversity of genres taking the audience across the decades to the theatres of Broadway musicals to the cinemas with Disney films to Country Roads with John Denver’s folk, the Las Vegas venues of “The Rat Pack,” and even the Wild West with Eagles soft rock.

Accompanying the chorale this time were pianist Kenny Balinao, drummer Dr. Ben Charles, guitarist Sonny Tyler and standing bass player Richard Estes. Together with the chorale, they switched styles going from vaudeville to musical to jazz to gospel to country as well as rock and folk, keeping up with many changing rhythms and tempo. In a brief intermission, the musical quartet delighted the concertgoers with their rendition of Casablanca’s “Play it Again, Sam.”

In compiling the song set, Anavitarte as always wanted to challenge the choir; this time with different music styles, genres and decades, steering clear of more traditional choir music. According to choir member Daniel Kern, the maestro wanted the choir to highlight the contrasts between the songs, to the point that if the audience closed their eyes, they would hear “different” choirs each song.

Bosque Civic Music Association President Kathy Harr welcomed the guests, especially the youth present. She reminded them to apply for the BCMA scholarships, and summer camps. Harr thanked sponsors, patrons and benefactors whose financial and other contributions make these special concerts possible. She also thanked the BCMA board, the backbone of the association. After the concert, visitors were able to enjoy a reception in the second-floor Jones Gallery, where concertgoers congratulated choir members on another successful concert, while admiring the beautiful permanent collection of the BAC.

As usual the concert started with the audience singing along in a moment of reflection – why and how are we here – with Amazing Grace and the National Anthem.

All the popular songs had the audience mouthing or even singing along; something Anavitarte encouraged, as long as it was with the right words, in tune and in time. Mark Hayes arranged several of the evening’s songs for choir like “I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing,” from the New Seekers, but made famous as the 1971 Coca Cola commercial; Bette Midler’s “The Wind Beneath My Wings,” from the 1982 movie Beaches.

Then the theme song “New York, New York,” from the 1977 movie with the same name by Martin Scorcese, initially sung by the incomparable Liza Minelli and made even more popular by the one and only “blue eyes” Frank Sinatra. And finally, the evening’s title song “The Impossible Dream” from the 1965 Broadway musical The Man of La Mancha and popularized by Andy Williams.

The soft and melodious “God Help the Outcast” took the guests to Paris’ Notre Dame where Esmeralda’s song reaches Quasimodo, the hunchback hiding in the rafters of the cathedral, while Leonard Cohen’s "Hallelujah” featured in the 2001 Dreamworks movie Shrek transported the audience to the land Far Away. The Eagles’ 1973 song “Desperado” showed the slow, long and winding road of the weary, fence-mending cowboy on the range.

Alan Billingsley’s “John Denver in Concert” arrangement took a country boy, filling his senses travelling down country roads up to a Rocky Mountain High. Billingsley also arranged the “This is It,” intro song. Ryan O’Connell’s arrangement of Rat Pack up tempo, smooth jazz favorites took the listeners to the 50s swanky swagger Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. The jazzy, swinging medley included Dean Martin’s “You Nobody until Somebody Loves You,” and “Everybody Loves Somebody,” and Sinatra’s “Come Fly With Me.”

Anavitarte likes to remind the audience how special this chorale is, that it’s “kinda cool” that they are “your family, your card playing friends, and fellow coffee drinkers. These are your people, your community.” The choir is always searching for new members, and a few, like Ann Spenrath got their first concert under their belts, overcoming initial nerves, but loving what the choir achieved together.

What heights the chorale hit, what stars they reached, turning the impossible dream of mastering this challenging song set in rehearsals since January into another stellar and enjoyable concert.