A Decade of Premier Performances and International Travels
At the beginning of the sixth season, there were 84 Lexington Singers, and by the 8th season membership had topped one hundred. Clearly such a large and experienced chorus was capable of music which was beyond smaller ensembles, and that attracted attention. A series of highly satisfying collaborative concerts with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra began in 1965. Verdi's powerful Requiem was the first of these, with a performance at the Cincinnati Music Hall and a second at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington. The latter concert, part of UK's centennial celebration, was attended by over 8,000, easily the Singers' largest audience yet.
But it was during the 1966-67 season that the collaboration provided a rare opportunity. English composer Wilfred Josephs had premiered his Requiem, a tribute to the Holocaust victims, at La Scala in 1963. It had received major awards and honors throughout Europe, but had not yet been heard in North America. It fell to the Lexington Singers, the UK Chorus, and the Cincinnati Symphony to premier the work in the United States, first in Cincinnati and then, on January 25 and 26, 1967, at Carnegie Hall. How could that formative group in 1959 have dreamed that their little community chorus would make its Carnegie Hall debut only seven years later? Audience reception for the two New York performances was gratifyingly enthusiastic. It was the thrill of a lifetime for the Singers, but the thrills were not over yet.
In 1971 there was yet another premier for the Lexington Singers. Phyllis Jenness was absent on academic sabbatical that year, and Don Ivey, another member of the UK music faculty, had agreed to fill in as guest conductor. So enjoyable was that experience that he remained as Associate Conductor for another three seasons, giving his special attention to the Pops concerts. It was during that first season with Don, though, that John Jacob Niles, prominent regional composer (most noted for his haunting Christmas song I Wonder As I Wander), had completed a new composition: Golgotha. And so, on March 30, 1971, the Lexington Singers, under the baton of Don Ivey, gave its first world premier performance.
But certainly the most daring endeavor of that daring decade occurred in the summer 1974. Eighty four members of this community chorus from a small Kentucky city would make their first European tour - and they would do it behind the Iron Curtain. As "Ambassadors of Friendship" the Singers would tour Romania, giving a dozen scheduled concerts, and uncounted impromptu performances. Fundraising to finance the trip was conducted the entire preceding year, and included a donation of $1,000 from the Lucile Ball Foundation. The trip spanned June 24 to July 15, and to this day nobody remembers how many towns and villages were visited, nor how many spur-of-the-moment concerts were given in parks, museums, and churches.
An especially gratifying part of the tour was the opening concert, given at the United States Embassy in Bucharest. The American Ambassador had heard the Lexington Singers at their Carnegie Hall performance in New York seven years earlier, and requested a special concert at the embassy. The tour included visits to impoverished towns and fairy-tale mountains; beautiful Black Sea resorts and Dracula's castle. The Singers were greeted by villagers with kisses on the cheeks and by priests bearing bread, salt, and brandy. And everywhere they went the Lexington Singers spread good will through the universal medium - human voices raised in song. Did that "Ambassadors of Friendship" tour in 1974 help dislodge a brick or two of that Iron Curtain for its final fall two decades later? Who knows?
Success followed success. And then, in 1975, there occurred a crisis that shook the group to its core: Phyllis Jenness, beloved conductor who had led the Singers from triumph to triumph, announced that she would resign at the end of the upcoming season. Her expanding responsibilities on the UK Music faculty required her full attention; it was time to move on.
The search for a new Music Director was on. After nearly two decades of leadership, Phyllis Jenness was leaving behind some very large shoes to fill.
Next: Under the Baton of James Ross Beane