Saturday, October 13, 2007

Turtle Creek Chorale’s new artistic director makes promising debut

By Arnold Wayne Jones of Dallas Voice

Damon Frazier

THE MORE-THAN-OK CHORALE: Palant, center, leads the 160-plus voices of Dallas' gay men's chorus.

There was, quite literally, a passing of the baton on Oct. 7, when Jonathan Palant was handed the instrument for leading the 160 voices of the Turtle Creek Chorale on stage at the Meyerson Sunday for the start of its 28th season.

But in many ways, Palant's position isn't an enviable one. In Vaudeville terms, he's been given the dead zone that follows the "banjo act" -- the thrilling, populist routine that gets the audience riled up.

In the analogy, the banjo act, of course is Timothy Seelig, who led the chorale for 20 years. Seelig had substantial musical bona fides, but his singular genius was as a showman: He enjoyed teasing energy out of the audience with the force of his personality and his outrageous production numbers.

By comparison, Palant's style is in a lower key (and even if it weren't, he'd be crazy to try to top Seelig out of the gate). The question everyone wanted answered was: Does Palant nevertheless have the charisma to build the TCC?

Clearly, he has all he needs.

"I'm more scared than I have ever been in my life," Palant charmingly confessed at the top of the program.

And while he seemed sincere, his fear didn't prevent him from putting together a terrific concert.

Palant didn't take a chance on being left alone on stage. He engaged numerous other arts groups in his debut (a policy he plans to continue throughout the season): The Dallas Symphony, Dallas Opera, Dallas Black Dance Theatre and other groups offered up performances. Soprano Ava Pine from the opera was especially exceptional, and Roderick Demmings -- a 13-year-old piano prodigy whose stride version of "Amazing Grace" and a technically perfect Chopin etude -- forced those present to burn the performance on their memories, as they will be saying "I saw him when" one day.

But the chorale was the main event, and Palant demonstrated a fierce command of the material.

Not that everything worked. The intentionally diverse repertoire began exceptionally with the African chant "Kwmbayah," which elicited chillblanes, and a daring Polynesian number, but the aboriginal "Past Life Melodies," sounding like a vocal didgeridoo, was better as an idea than as actual entertainment. It sometimes seemed as if Palant was in academia, showing the variety of sounds a large chorus can create (and kudos to the singers for doing it so well).

But Palant showed his ease at being a Texas transplant by making fun of his Midwestern roots and tapping Tuna-legend Jaston Williams to write a lyric for "A Roving," with the Lone Star humor built in.

Which is where Palant showed he "gets" Dallas' gay men's chorus. As good as the music has always been, a Turtle Creek Chorale concert has never been primarily about the music, but about community and fellowship, sadness and exultation expressed through the music. For 27 years, the chorale has carried on a dialogue with Dallas (especially its gay community), with each performance serving as another chapter in the story.

Seelig's departure was merely the end of the first act; Palant's performance on Sunday confirmed that Act 2 is just beginning -- and that there's plenty more of the story left to tell.

Pegasus News content partner - Dallas Voice, the community newspaper for gay & lesbian Dallas.

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