An evening of gathering drama in the brand-new Frank Gehry-designed Pritzker pavilion in Chicago. Gehry’s stage and auditorium is in his signature curved metal with a trellis supporting the speakers and lights extending over the outdoor amphitheatre. It is an astonishing creation that will add impact to any performance – not that the forces here required any assistance.

Directed by Christopher Bell, bringing his work on either side of the Atlantic together, the combine Grant Park Festival Chorus and the 80-strong National Youth Choir of Scotland hushed an audience of more than 8000 with the festival’s resident composer John Corigliano’s rich and textured setting of L’Invitation au Voyage. The strong professional voices of the American chorus and the pure sounds of the National Youth Choir of Scotland proved to be an electrifying combination. Scottish percussionist Colin Currie gave a characteristically athletic reading of James MacMillan’s percussion concerto, Veni, Veni, Emmanuel. The piece moves through the orchestral instruments to explore the message of Advent and Currie’s vast percussive armoury was balanced with the ethereal tranquillity of the Grant Park strings and Currie’s haunting marimba. Although the concerto is often a main course in itself, William Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast was the night’s real tour de force. In the gathering gloom of the Chicago evening, Bell led his massed ranks through orgy, fury and final triumph as Babylon’s downfall is sought and won. Seldom performed in the United States, Belshazzar’s Feast requires innocence and power, purity and strength. All was on display here as Walton’s choral passages provided the dramatic platform for bell’s combined choruses to unleash their potential.

Bass-baritone Nathan berg’s rich, strong tones made easy work of the story-telling interludes and the Grant park Festival Orchestra missed no opportunity to push the limits of Gehry’s stunning acoustic. Powerful stuff and an impressive start to the National Youth Choir of Scotland’s two-week Chicago tour.

The Herald, August 16 2004 
Judith Robertson