News Scrapbook 1980-1981

READER

JAN 8

POWAY NEWS-CHIEFTAIN

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it. Even the traditional carols on the pro- gram were renewed in this way by artful modern arrangements that preserved the fami liar melodies while throwing new light on them through refreshingly in- teresting harmonization. One of the most memorable of these pieces was in fact one of the simplest. This was David Willcocks' arrangement of •·see Amid the Wrnter 's Snow," an unpretentious, homophomc, strophic hymn that by means of rcpctit10n and a monumentally confi . dent organ accompaniment gave breathtaking cumulative power to its re- frain, "Christ is born in Bethlehem." A different musical world from that of the Hassler mass, with its many-voiced com- plexity and its sense of perpetual explo- ration and generation - but there can be great art in simplicity itself, and it was exhibited here in both arrangement and performance. The visual environment of a concert is something we become less and less sensi- tive to as more and more concert halls are built that offer nothing but a neutral backgroun\i- The ideal has become functionalism, with no distractions; the music is intentionally isolated from all the rest of history, society, and culture, and our experience of the performance comes ever closer to the experience we would get S with a good hi-fi set (plus a sense of space <>: and some coughing neighbors). It is useful Z to remember that this mode of perform- ance distorts the cultural reality ofmusic as } well as the, imaginative experience of audi- o ences, performers, and composers. All composers before our own sterile era were aware, as they were composing, that their works would be performed not in a fea- tureless box but in Schonbrunn Palace or Saint Mark's Cathedral. Consequently, it is impossible to con- vey the full meaning of the USO choral concert and of the works sung in it without mentioning Founder's Chapel, which is anything but a featureless box. This is by no means one of the world's great exem- plars ofecclesiastical architecture-looked at critically, the myriad details of stone, woodwork, and plaster are relatively mechanical, and the crucifixion scene over the altar is little more than a serviceable imitation of its betters - but the designers and those who commissioned them recog- nized something that the builders of most modern public spaces attempt to deny: namely, that the world of nature, of the spirit, and of the imagination is a full world, complicated, varied, active, stimulating. The chapel provides a superb environment for music making, for in ad- dition to its fine acoustics, it reflects, in shape, color, and pattern, the rich sense of temporal and spatial plenitude that is em- bodied in all music of any lasting value. In particular, it was the perfect setting for a concert of Christmas music, for its decor underlined the fact that a purely aesthetic appreciation of such music is necessarily deaf to the music's inner reso- nances. When the choir, standing before the sculptured and painted image of the crucifixion, grandly proclaimed "Christ is born in Bethlehem," the image was re- vealed as a fundamental component of the music, though a silent one. Birth pointed to death, and death pointed to rebirth. This mutual illumination of performance and environment was one of the most treasura- ble elements in a concert that illuminated the audience as well. D

JAN 8 1981 Grid clinic offered ' to local coaches University of San Diego football coach Bill Williams will conduct a clinic for coaches of all youth football programs in the area from 8 a .m. to 5 p.m. this Saturday (Jan. 10) at the University of San Diego football field. Williams and his staff will discuss the latest techniques for coaching the game at all youth levels. For more infonnation, call Williams a t his office, 291-9480, ext. 4272, or at home, 578-7034, as soon as possi- - ble.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

JAN 1 l 1981'

UC Irvine Routs USD as Magee Stars, 108-62 By JOHN WEYLER Times Staff Writer The official line had UCI favored to win its basketball game Saturday night against the University of San Diego by five points. Somebody must have forgotten the zero. Playing their best game of the year, the Anteaters turned on a packed house of 1,611 with torrid outside shooting and an awesome display of fastbreak basketball to rout San Diego, 108-62. USD, a team with a record identi- cal to UCI (7-4) going into Satur- day night's "contest," had been playing excellent basketball of late. But, without No. l scorer Bob Bartholomew, the Toreros were no match for Irvine. "We played very well, very well," Irvine Coach Bill Mulligan said. "We shot well, but we're a good-shooting team. And the de- fense was great." Defense has been San Diego's forte this year. But the Anteathers, against a team which has been forc- ing opponents to shoot only 45% from the floor, hit an incredible 66% clip. "Obviously, this is good momen- tum for the opening of conference (UCI plays host to Cal State Fuller- ton Thursday to open Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. action)," said Mulli- gan, whose Anteaters have now won five in a row. "I hope they didn't use it all up in one night." The Toreros opened up the game by sagging on the nation's leading scorer, Kevin Magee, and trying to control the tempo. San Diego defensed Magee well, but that opened up the outside. Ma- gee finished with 24 points (below his 30.6 average). but he pulled down 18 rebounds. "We played great defense," Ma- gee said. "We were holding 'em to just one shot almost everytime. They sagged in on me early, but that really opens things up for Ran- dy (Whieldon l and the other guys." Whieldon, who has been the An- teaters' No. 2 man offensively, hit seven of 11 from the field for 18 points. But he wasn't alone in the "20-foot layup" department this time. Irvine scored 24 of its 41 field goals from 15 feet out or farther. Freshman forward Ben McDo- nald had his best performance of the year, sinking eight of 13 field goal attempts and finishing with 20 points and five rebounds. "I got 'em started," McDonald said. The 6-8 freshman had the An- teaters' first two baskets. "Yeah, I'm feeling a lot more relaxed out there now. I guess I was tight early in the year."

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supplementing the tenor section with female altos - which is presumably what is done here - strengthens the volume but dilutes the characteristic tenor timbre. One wonders whether it would not be possible to bolster up these otherwise excellent college choirs with a few additional tenors recruited from the community at large. Choral groups ofthis excellence, and per- forming works of such value, must be con- sidered treasures of a musical community far broader than that of the University of San Diego, and it would therefore seem appropriate for that broader community to be called on for a little help where it is needed. Aside from the quality of the singing and conducting, the USO Christmas con- cert was notable for the taste and inven- tiveness of its programming. In addition to the Hassler mass, there were a number of carols suitable to the season, some tradi- tional and some by first-rate twentieth- century composers whose music is unfor- tunately almost never performed in San Diego. There were two exquisite pieces by Benjamin Britten ("A Boy is Born" and "New Year's Carol"), a "Glory to God in the Highest'' by American composer Ran- dall Thompson, and a concluding "Sir Christemas'' by the most delightful of modern Welsh composers, William Mathias. The latter work, with its synco- pated "Noel, Noel," its jaunty organ ac- companiment (played exuberantly by Father Reveles), and its pleasurably pun- gent harmonies spiced with open fifths, had the exotic color and energy of the felicitously mixed breed: both medieval and modern, it proved on the nerve end- ings that the tradition of Christmas music remains alive in the hands of composers who can absorb it, re-create it, and renew

lt is no surprise that the USO choruses sing in this manner, since their conductor, Father Nicolas Reveles, exhibits precisely the same qualities in his own splendid piano playing. He has done remarkable things with his relatively untrained stu- dents, turning them into an instrument strikingly responsive to his direction. The excerpts from a mass by the sixteenth- century German composer Hans Leo Hass- ler showed that even the fifty-voice choir, which one might think too unwieldy a group for this intimately expressive polyphony, could be made to manage much of the dynamic shading and rhythmic flexibility such music demands. The advantage of a chorus of this size, in the performance of late Renaissance litur- gical music, is the richness of sound, which makes possible the grand, emotion- ally thrilling effects sought after by many composers of the period (particularly those composers associated - as Hassler was - with the Venetian school). But it would be naive to suppose that such a quantity of young, nonprofessional singers, however well coached, could give Father Reveles all he wanted in the way of phrasing and tone color. The select, fourteen-voice en- semble is for obvious reasons a far more refined instrument, and it was when this group was singing that one could experi- ence the full musical thrill of a choir func- tioning virtually as the voice of its conductor. That voice, it must be said, is a bit weak in the tenor section. The same thing can be said of the larger chorus - and of practi- e11lly all n·,nprofessional choral groups. The p{Oblem is not the quality of the sing- ers (they are, in fact, surprisingly good) but their number. There are just not that many tenors on any college campus, and

JONATHAN SAVILLE One of the loveliest concertS of the holi- day season was the program of Christmas music performed in Founder's Chapel by the choir and vocal ensemble of the Uni- versity of San Diego. The e are really two groups -- a substantial organization of some fifty members, and a fourteen-voice ensemble drawn from the larger choir - and their alternation permitted the audi- ence to hear two interestingly different choral sounds. The two groups were at one, however, in their style of choral singing, which 1 would define as essentially of the French _chool . This style - which one may hear, for example, in the Philippe Caillard Chorus or the Roger Wagner Chorale - is characterized by a rich, resonant timbre; a suave equalization and blending of the higher and lower voices; a smoothness of initiation and a full, rounded quality in final notes, so that the sound seems to bloom and radiate; a broad range of dynamics, with much emphasis on the swelling and diminishing of notes; an ex- pansiveness of phrasing; and a supple, pliant rhythm that permits each moment in text and music to determine its own most expressive shape. One is a long way here from the choir of King's College, Cam- bridge, with its clear, thin, vibratoless timbre and its boy sopranos, or the typical American college chorus, with its inflexi- bly robust energy and unrefined sound. What the proponents of the French style aim at - and what the USO ensemble quite successfully attain - is warmth, nuance, and the living phrase, as though the entire chorus were a single, ensitive musician.

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DAILY TRANSCRIPT JAN 8 1981

SAN DIEGO UNION JAN 11 1007

SAN DIEGO UNION JArl l ij

Reserve guard Jason Works was seven of nine from the field for 14 points. And forward Rainer Wulf, easily UCl's best defender and a so- lid performer all year, was five of seven for 11 points. With Bartholomew out with an ankle injury and guard Mike Stock- alper having a poor shooting night -he missed seven outside shots and finished with one point-the Tore- ros were hard-pressed to get much offense. Center David Heppell led San Diego with 14 points and reserve Steve Rocha had 13. After running to a 43-29 halftime advantage, Irvi11e blew the game wide open early after the intermis- sion. With the standing room-only crowd rocking, backup center Scott Hartman flew the lane for a fast- break dunk that left the backboard shaking. Then, only six minutes into the second half, Works got back-to- back steals and turned them into layups. Irvine was leading, 69-36, and the Toreros were out of it. Magee went out with 13:50 re- maining, but returned with about eight minutes to play. Mulligan was asked how he would have felt if Magee would have gotten hurt. "Hartman was beat up (he was elbowed in the eye in the second half)," Mulligan said, then added, "and, honestly, we're trying to keep his scoring and rebounding aver- ages up."

Torrid Irvine Quintet Rips Toreros 10 UC Irvine shot a blistering 66 percent from the field, most of them from 15 feet or more, to bury University of San Diego beneath a 108-62 avalanche on the Anteaters' floor last night. Dave Heppell scored 14 points, Steve Rocha 13 and Rusty Whitmarsh 10 for the rforeros but their efforts were not enough to prevent USD from suffering its fifth defeat against seven wins in the non-league COl}test. Irvine, winning for the eighth time against four set- backs, also threw up a strong defense in holding the Toreros to a 32 percent shooting accuracy. The winners put five players in double figures led by 24 from Kevin Magee and 20 by Ben McDonald, · Randy Whieldon added 18, Jason Works 14 and Rainer Wulf 11 for Irvine which claim_ed_ a 43-29 halftime edge and never trailed lifter mterm1 10n. USD, which opens league play with two road game• next weekend was also hurt last night by the absence of- igh-scoring B~b Bartho- lomew, out with an ankle injury.

Torero Star Out · For Irvine Game Bob Bartholomew, the University of San Diego's leading scorer and reboun- der, suffered torn ligaments in his left ankle during Thursday 's practice and will miss tonight's 7:30 p.m. game at UC-Irvine. The loss of Bartholomew comes at a critical time for the Toreros (7-4), who con- front a strong front-line team tonight in the Anteat- ers, and open West Coast Athletic Conference acµon with a senes at Pepperdine and Loyola next weekend.

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USD Student Housing Project is Half Done

firm of Schoell & Paul to house 362 students and will include two staff apartments. The project offer s four se parate building three-story buildings totaling 70,000 square feet. The fir s t phase included 250units.

Constr uction on the U niversity of San Diego's student apartment complex i 50% complete, according to the project's general contractor, M.H. Golden Co. The $4.1- million complex, scheduled for completion in the 1981 school year, was designed by the architectural the second phase of