Today's Tucson Masterworks Chorale performance could quite possibly be a first for Tucson.
As far as anyone knows, Ernest Bloch's "Sacred Service" has never been performed here. And, if it has, it's been years - much longer than the memories of those involved in today's performance.
"I can't find that it has ever been done in Tucson," said Rabbi Sam Cohon from Temple Emanu-El, a respected cantor who will perform the work with the chorale. "It's something that's done periodically, but it's hard. You have a huge chorale and you need a cantor and it has to be a baritone."
Cohon has performed the work twice in his career - the first time 30 years ago in Santa Barbara, Calif., and 15 years ago at the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina.
"I had forgotten how hard it is," he said, noting that Bloch wrote the work in challenging intervals with measures including changing the tempo four times in a span of four measures. "I completely underestimated the challenge of doing it again.
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"Vocally, it's just right for me. It's set for baritone, and that's a pleasure, but I always forget you have to sing these very challenging intervals."
Bloch composed his "Sacred Service" during a period when he was rediscovering his Jewishness. He was commissioned by a synagogue in San Francisco to set the Union Prayer Book version of the Saturday-morning Sabbath liturgy to music.
"The Shabbat had never been composed through by anyone before with full orchestration throughout," Cohon explained. "There were Jewish composers who might have set parts of it, but not in the classical mode. To do so is kind of a sweeping, powerful effort."
The "Sacred Service" is included on a program that features Eric Whitacre's "Five Hebrew Songs," featuring the Tucson Girls Chorus, violinist Anna Gendler and pianist Chris Fresolone; and several other sacred works by Bloch including Méditation Hebraïque with cellist Anne Gratz and pianist Mary Lonsdale Baker; and "Nigun," with Gendler and her pianist husband Alexander Tentser.
Marcela Molina will conduct; she is the conductor of both the chorale and girls chorus.
Today's concert begins at 3 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El, 225 N. Country Club Road. Admission is a suggested donation of $15, $12 for seniors and students. Details: 730-5640 or tucsonmasterworkschorale.com
