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About Vernonia's voice. (Vernonia, OR) 2007-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 2022)
community September 15 2022 11 The Wisdom of Columbia County continued from page 5 rale’s Artistic Director in 2017, to bring the words and mu- sic together with the voices on stage. Boyer has performed and taught music from her earliest years, starting to conduct when she was just 17 years old. She has been Artistic Direc- tor for choirs and bands of various sizes, in schools, churches, and community choirs in Pennsylvania, Ne- braska, Colorado, and Oregon. Under her direction Columbia Chorale has twice sung at Carnegie Hall, in 2017 and 2019. Columbia Chorale has been performing music in Columbia County for over 20 years and features both an adult and a children’s choir. The non-audition group is currently recruiting new members to perform in both their annual Christmas concert this December and for the performance of The Wisdom of Columbia County in June 2023. Lay has written a final Postlude, which will weave themes from the previous movements and combine the voices of four different choirs, three full adult choirs along with a children’s choir, to simulate the Colum- bia River weaving its way toward the Pacific Ocean. “We’re going to have the music move across the choirs so it sounds like the river,” says Boyer. “We were hop- ing to keep the river present, because the river runs through it. Kevin did it so well, musically – there is always this sense that you can hear the river. People who are more musically astute will hear it, and anyone else will feel it.” Lay agrees that the river subtly worked its way into his music, until it became a major theme. “It was when I started writing the second movement about the Sea Captain that I realized the music was like a current flowing through this thing – the way it rolls and swirls, and ebbs and flows, it was just quite natural. I happen to live on the Multnomah Channel and when I was writing this I was living on the water in a house boat. So it was really clear to me that that affected everything I was writing. It’s not something you really plan, it’s just there. It unfolds itself that way. And once that’s in my head it just keeps going that way.” When The Wisdom of Columbia County is performed at Carnegie Hall in 2024, Boyer says it will feature a choir of about 150-175 singers and will be accompanied by a medi- um sized chamber orchestra, the New England Symphonic Ensemble, which includes piano, a string section, some brass, and woodwinds, which Lay will now be working to compose for. “The piano parts are simple and melodic enough that I’ll be able to adapt an orchestra to it really well,” says Lay. “It’s really exciting and amazing to be able to orchestrate this.” Margaret Trenchard-Smith, Kevin Lay, and Alice Boyer are collaborating to create The Wisdom of Columbia County. “This has now gone from a sweet, little idea around the dining room table to being something that will be premiered in 2024 at Carnegie Hall,” say Boyer. “When you get a musical seed you don’t always envision how far it can go. When we look at the humble roots of Columbia County, we look at ourselves as being pretty simple folk out here, in rural Oregon. This is really something that has become so far beyond the expression of celebration, and so much more than I could have ever asked for or thought of. It represents Vernonia, it represents Columbia City, it represents Rainier, Clatskanie. All of us are represented in this.” The final piece to this musical jigsaw puzzle of com- bined talents is a single piece of original art work, purchased by Margaret Trenchard-Smith from her friend and local painter Dee Vadnais, who lives in Deer Island. Her paint- ing, Columbia County: Canaan Road View, will serve as the cover art for the project. While all four of the main collaborators on the project live here in Columbia County – Lay and Boyer in Scap- poose, and the Trenchard-Smiths in Chapman, all of them are also transplants to this rural county. Yet, they’ve all tried to show their love for their adopted home through this proj- ect. “I’m a citizen of the world, really,” says Brian. “We’re all citizens of the same planet. So community outreach and the celebration of regular people’s lives is a good thing.” Lay agrees, and says he sees music as a way to bring people together, especially during difficult times with a lot of division. “I am convinced that when people recognize what they have in common, relation- ships can begin to heal, even if there are lots of dif- ferences. Imagine two people singing side by side in a choir, and one is on the far right politically and the other is on the far left, especially if they’re singing about their own shared history, it temporarily unifies them. That is just something magical about all choirs and it’s a beautiful thing.” “Rural life is not celebrated sufficiently, cultur- ally,” says Margaret. “And I love this county.” “We’ve really embraced rural life,” adds Brian. “We haven’t got to milking cows just yet, but there are chickens living next door and we eat their eggs occa- sionally,” he says with a laugh. Lay says he actually lived in Vernonia for a brief period of time in 2020. “I loved Vernonia. The people are hard working and good natured. What a cool town!” As plans for The Wisdom of Columbia County come to- gether, Margaret made sure to thank Marilyn Allen, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Columbia Chorale of Oregon. “Her moral support has been vital,” said Margaret. “Kevin Lay spent over two years composing this, and he really put his heart and soul into this,” says Margaret. “I think folks in Columbia County are going to be astonished when they hear it.” I think of Columbia County. Of its sublime beauty. 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