I first came to Austria in 1989 as part of the University of Montana's 'The Chamber Chorale in Residence in Vienna' program.  The choir's director, Donald Carey had brought his choirs to Vienna every three years starting in the early 70's and had made many contacts in Austria.  When we arrived just before Easter in '89 our first project was to sing the Brahms' Requiem in the Musikverein with the Klosterneuberg based 'Schola Cantorum'.  I made many friends in that choir and I remember the performance because my mouth was hanging open in awe and wonder - a small-town kid from the Montana mountains standing in the Musikverein!  At the end of our four-month stay I didn't have one Groschen and hadn't found any possible work here.  I knew that I wanted to come back and study in Vienna, but I had no idea if it would ever be possible.  At least I had the name of a good choir I could sing with if I made it back and several people who might be able to help.

So, I went back to Montana with a head full of Austria and Vienna and decided to try to pick up with the plans I had had before the stay in Vienna.  I had wanted to go to the Alaskan wilderness and teach in a small school where I didn't have to teach marching band and have a basketball pep band.  I just wanted to work with kids playing with music just for them and with no committments to have to perform for all kinds of other functions. I got very lucky and was hired at the perfect school for what I wanted to do.

After three wonderful years there and one more visit to Vienna, I realized that I'd better get back and study because there were.... Altersgrenzen (max. age limits)!!!!! for entrance to the Vienna schools.  Again I was lucky.  Angela came with an exchange program and that made our first year, 1992, here easier.  Still, it took me two years to finally get into the Conservatory of Vienna mainly because I had so much to learn about the operatic and symphonic reportoire but also because getting into any place here does take a little Vitamin-B(eziehungen) - i,e. contacts.

After beginning my studies, actually halfway through my second year, Wolfgang Bruneder, the conductor of the choir I had been singing with, the same Schola Cantorum that I had gotten to know in '89, invited me to be a guest 'Arbeitskreis' conductor at his choir week in Zell an der Pram (between Wels and Passau) which he had organized in 1978.  He had heard that I had worked with a small choir in Vienna and knew that I had some ideas about Spirituals.  I was really happy that he asked me, but very very nervous.  That first summer seminar week (1995) was so successful that three of the singers and I discussed and then organized the first Spiritual Project Choir that fall.  It took a little time to get it going but we were ready with our first program at Easter-time 1996, which we performed in five churches here.  That project led to the next, The Spiritual Project Choir II, which was ready last Christmas and was performed seven times, once in St Leonard am Forst for Die Erste Bank.  Those projects included only older arrangements of Spirituals that were mostly written before 1965.  From what I had heard of European and other foreign choirs (as well as inexperienced American choirs) I decided that it would be a lot easier to get them to understand the style if they first tried simpler versions of the pieces.  Too many choirs tried to do popular jazzy versions and they missed the fact that this was sacred music.  I think our two projects showed that foreign choirs can also perform the music well if they learn more about the roots of the music.  We are now trying to do the same thing with this new project.  Because we now have pieces that are not Spirituals, we have had to find a new name - Heart, Voice, and Soul.  We are working very hard on our jazz pieces since this is another area many choirs under-estimate.  So many people think that jazz is a very easy style that you can perform 'irgend-wie' - the singers in my choir have learned that this is dead wrong.  I learned jazz during my University years playing trombone for six years in the jazz bands and taking two years of jazz improvisation (a very complicated study).

I guess another thing that you might want to know is that we've managed these projects without any ticket costs.  For the first project Angela (and I) put out about the money which we easily got back from the donations. That choir gave their profit to the second project.  For those performances we again covered all our costs and passed on a profit to this project - all from donations.  I am very excited to be able to put on these concerts with an amateur choir that doesn't pay to belong and to provide them for free to our audiences.  If there is a profit when all the projects are done (when Ange and I go back to the states) it will be divided up between all the singers who have been with us, which then wouldn't amount to much per person, or donated to other causes if they want to do that.

That's a little bit about how this idea and me have come to be in the same place at the same time.  If you've got questions please use the mail links to get in touch with me.  Thanks for reading this.

Warm Regards,
Dan Worcester