Chorus pro Musica Adds Projection Art to Haydn’s ‘Creation’

by David Weininger/The Boston Globe

David McCue, a board member of Chorus pro Musica and a lifelong choral singer and music enthusiast, had become preoccupied with a discomfiting observation.

“Classical music concerts seem to be stuck in the 19th century,” McCue said during a recent interview. “People dress the same way they did in 1890, and they expect, broadly, the same sort of behavior from the audience. I have lots of friends who love music but don’t like classical music because they think the concerts are stodgy. They’re boring.”

When it came time to plan Chorus pro Musica’s Saturday performance of Haydn’s oratorio “The Creation,” McCue wanted to see whether he could update the concertgoing experience. He wanted “a choral concert that you could emerge from and say absolutely anything other than ‘boring,’ ” he said with a laugh.

In particular, he wanted to give the concert a visual dimension in order to heighten the storytelling aspect of the piece. So he and Betsy Burleigh, music director of Chorus pro Musica, thought about the idea of projecting images — mostly paintings — on a screen behind the musicians in Jordan Hall. But that seemed too static and confining… Read the full story at BostonGlobe.com