Portland State Magazine Spring 2016

12 pORTLAND STATE MAGAZINE SPRING 2016 Ethan Sperry preps PSU singers before that evening’s Choir on Fire concert at the First United Methodist Church in southwest Portland. FOR SPERRY , music professor and director of Choral Activities at PSU, the goal of choral performance is to make the music come to life and connect with the audience. He knows that if the emotional level has dropped on stage, it will drop in the audience as well, and that same principal applies to a recording. Sperry thinks that too many performances offer perfect notes and rhythms but lack intensity and the ability to convey a story, which is bad news for classical music. Since arriving at PSU in 2010, Sperry has established himself as a leader in the Pacific Northwest choral scene. He’s done this by creating more opportunities for students to sing, expanding the PSU choral program with the Man Choir and Vox Femina, and by maintaining the high standards of the University’s choral tradition. In 2013, under Sperry’s direction, the Chamber Choir won the Seghizzi International Compe- tition for Choral Singing in Gorizia, Italy, becoming the first American choir ever to win the Grand Prize in the competi- tion’s 52-year history. The Chamber Choir has also released two CDs, A Drop in the Ocean in 2012 and Into Unknown Worlds in 2014 to great acclaim. In addition to his work at PSU, Sperry is also the artistic director and conductor of the Oregon Repertory Singers, and when he is not conducting, he tries to carve out some time to compose music. Around 25 of his works have been published by Hal Leonard Corporation, earthsongs, Santa Barbara Music Publishing and Musica Baltica, including pop songs, world music and arrangements of Indian ragas and Bollywood movie songs. IT COULD BE said that making music is in Sperry’s blood. His father, Paul Sperry, is a renowned lyric tenor whose inter- national career included appearances at La Scala and with the New York Philharmonic. Ethan Sperry’s interest in conducting began when his parents took him to his first orchestra concert at the age of eight. He started out playing piano and cello before discovering the joy of singing in choirs during his undergraduate years at Harvard. Sperry taught music in a private school before pursuing his master’s and doctoral degrees in choral conducing from the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern Cal- ifornia. He taught music at Miami University (Ohio) before moving to Portland with his wife, Siri Hoogen, and children to take the job at PSU. “One of the most valuable lessons someone can learn from Ethan is the importance of being vulnerable with a choir, creating a partnership and acknowledging that they are going on a musical journey together with you,” says Ben España who received his master’s in choral conducting under Sperry and is now the associate conductor of the Oregon Repertory Singers. At the end of May, Sperry embarks on another musical journey when his choirs perform in the annual Global Rhythms concert at Lincoln Hall. Sperry’s Global Rhythms series, published by earthsongs, is one of the bestselling series of world music for choirs in the United States. The May 28-29 concert, entitled “Global Rhythms V: Stand Against Violence,” emphasizes times and places where music has been used as a unifying force to stand against violence and oppression. The choirs will sing spirituals and South African freedom songs, music tied to Gandhi’s nonviolent revolution in India and music from the Singing Revolution in Estonia. Sperry says the selection of music to be performed is one of the most import aspects of his work. “Choral literature goes back to the Renaissance. It’s wonder- ful to have so much to choose from.”  James Bash is a technical writer and freelance classical music writer in Portland. spring