Orchestra and Chorus

November 26, 2014

The Orchestra & Choir in the balcony, Stephan Casurella, Conducting

C.K. Wang, photo

A 30-piece orchestra accompanies The Boar’s Head and Yule Log Festival. These professional musicians are from throughout the greater Cincinnati area and beyond. Many have participated in the Boar’s Head Orchestra for years – some more than 30.

The Boar’s Head Choir is a 50-person ensemble. With minimal rehearsal time, this group comes together each year to sing the festive carols with gusto. A number of the choristers are former choir members; singing in these performances is also a reunion celebration.

There are parts of the Boar's Head Festival that Music Director Stephan Casurella has never seen. From his position in the balcony, his eyes are mainly directed towards the orchestra, choir, and the monitor for organist Shiloh Roby who’s seated at the organ console behind the evergreens on the stage.

There is a lot of running up and down stairs to the balcony. The trumpeter who introduces the performance outside the nave then runs up to the balcony to play his part in the Boar's Head Carol. Until he gets there, another trumpeter covers his part for him.

All the soloists who are also kings, shepherds, and waits sing in the choir, as well as taking part in the processions around the nave. So up and down they go, crawling over other choristers and all the lighting equipment in the balcony.

There’s even some fancy footwork at the end, a quiet and solemn moment for the audience as the sprite leaves the darkened church with his candle. Simultaneously, chorister David Thompson, who also plays King Wenceslas, starts a CD recording of chimes to be played over the loudspeaker. Another chorister runs down to the lower level under the chapel and initiates the mechanism that causes the bells in the cathedral tower to play. The result is a sense that the bells in the tower can be heard in the nave. (They can't.)

Through it all, Shiloh Roby’s playing is the musical thread that stitches the performance together.

Shiloh is a master at improvisation. Not only does he perform his own ideas of the regal music appropriate for the procession, he weaves in familiar tunes, appreciated by the musically sophisticated listener. This year listen for "What a Small Party This Is " and "Putting on the Ritz". Another year "Hail, Britannia" was woven into his playing.

Behind Boar's Head forest set is Organist Shiloh Roby's solo spot

C.K. Wang, photo

Last Christmas Shiloh was given a stuffed squirrel for his dog. Instead he brought it in to keep him company in his solo spot behind the evergreens – where his only visual connection with the festival is a small TV monitor connected to a camera that is focused on Stephan, who cues Shiloh at key points during the performance. Stephan’s attire is a white shirt and bright tie rather than something more formal. Otherwise Shiloh can't see him through the monitor.

When the quartet of waits are singing in the front, out of earshot, Stephan lip reads to know when to bring in the chorus. And at the very end when everyone sings “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, Stephan has to let Shiloh know if he needs to slow the tempo of the last verse so the procession will get out on time.

Stephan says "The whole experience brings serious musicians together in a festive way that celebrates the ending of the holiday season."

To Light Boar’s Head: 86,000 Watts, a Loyal Crew – and Trevor

October 24, 2014

Trevor Shibley’s theatrical lighting friends like to tease him that the only way to get out of Boar’s Head is to move south.

One went to Kings Productions, another to Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, and a third jokes he sees Tampa in his future. But Trevor has more friends—lots of them--and every December he calls. And every December, they come to help Trevor create the magical light for the Boar’s Head Festival at Christ Church Cathedral.

It all started in the fifth grade at Rosedale Elementary School in Middletown, where a stage-struck Trevor decided, “I’m not an actor, and I’m not a singer – so I did lighting.” 

Right out of high school, the Kings Island entertainment department snapped him up – and a career was launched. He loved the variety there – lighting shows one week and helping transport dolphins the next -- but ultimately he moved to videographer work for the Animal Planet cable channel and then to theatrical lighting for Carnival cruise lines. 

Seeking a more stable life, he moved back here eight years ago and went to work for Vincent Lighting Systems in Erlanger– in his present day job, overseeing major lighting installations.

Through all the job changes, he has managed to be in town the week of Boar’s Head.

While working at Kings Island in 1988, Trevor met Stefan Skirtz, a Christ Church parishioner who was the Boar’s Head lighting director. Stefan asked a few of his co-workers, including Trevor, to lend a hand at the festival. Trevor loved the production and its challenges and was hooked.

In early December 1993, Trevor received a FedEx delivery: a small envelope containing a lighting diagram, notes and a key. Stefan was moving on. 

With that delivery, Trevor became the Boar’s Head lighting guru and has kept it up for more than 20 years – even the occasional years when he has made director Bob Beiring extremely nervous about conflicts with his day-job assignments.

Trevor and the friends he’s worked with over the years show up about a week before Boar’s Head with scores of rented 575-watt theatrical lights to supplement the church’s and provide the more than 150 points of light that are necessary to give the festival its visual magic. 

For every light, a cable – even in the crawl space above the nave
Photo courtesy of Trevor Shibley

They work into the wee hours of the night because they have day jobs. In a few days they run more than a thousand feet of cable and mount lights on the nave walls, in discreet spots on the chancel floor, in the balcony and on the ceiling in places where ordinary lighting normally resides. 

There are many kinds of lights:

         Lights equipped with blue gels that let people read their programs in the dark and others with red gels that enhance the Beefeaters’ uniforms.

         Four “specials” -- lights that enhance the Rubens portrait.

         Color mixes that – for instance – combine reds and blues to wash the back wall in purple light.

        Spotlights that follow performers and other lights that illuminate specific areas of the nave.

         Lights for the kings’ presentation of gifts. Lights for the waits and lights that let the audience see faces as performers enter from the narthex.

         There are cool–colored lights for serious scenes and warm ones for cheerful scenes. 

Lane Williams focuses the candle splashes
Photo courtesy of Trevor Shibley

The lighting crew’s hard work comes together in
 a moment of stage magic
Photo courtesy of Trevor Shibley

         Some lights have shutters that narrow their beams to one particular place and others have cut-out filters called Gobos that throw candle and tree images on the wall.
         There’s even a light that makes the rose in the rose window seem to spin around. 

Plans, the follow spot (with Joe McLean), the light board, 

singers and musicians fit tightly together

Photo courtesy of Trevor Shibley 

All of this is controlled by a big, rented light board. Someday, Trevor hopes to program that board for each scene in the Boar’s Head script. But for now, he and his right-hand assistant run it manually. They sometimes are cued by a certain performer’s gesture or a certain sustained note ordered up by music director Stephan Casurella. People in the audience don’t see this intimate relationship between acting, music and light – but that intersection is where Trevor lives during a performance.

Trevor in his element, with the “best seat in the house”
Photo courtesy of Trevor Shibley

“I have the best seat in the house,” he says, with the orchestra and singers behind him and the complex performance laid out in front of him.

And then, after four performances, the magic is over and tons of gear must be carried out of the church by midnight. After all, director Beiring has only paid for a one-week rental of the lights and light board.

A few days later Trevor returns to refocus and repoint the church’s basic lighting -- and then it’s back to the day job for 51 weeks before Boar’s Head starts up all over again.

Behind the Glamorous Costumes: Sharp Needles and Strategies

Novemeber 26, 2014

Betsy Harris explains the care of costumes to cast members    

©2014 Constance Sanders

When Betsy Harris was recruited to be the costume director for the Christ Church Boar’s Head Festival, she was a new cathedral member, and not many people knew her. She was also pretty short, so she feared that nobody would find her in a sea of taller cast members.

So she did what any daughter of a Broadway dancer by night would do: She put a felt reindeer antler fascinator on her head when working the crowded undercroft on performance weekends. “So people who needed something could see me!”

She hasn’t gotten any taller, but 12 years later, everybody knows who she is -- and where she sets up in the undercroft with enough supplies to start a tailor shop. 

What most people don’t know, though, is how she has transformed the care of hundreds of individual garments -- from ballet slippers to satin hats -- that costume almost 200 cast members.

Because many of the costumes she inherited were wearing out, her first priority was conservation: better storage and hanging, repairs before storage rather than just before next year’s performances, strategic additions to hems, seams and necklines to not only dress up garments but make them stronger.

Though she’d rather preserve than replace, she was able to pick up a few treasures when the Middletown opera closed down a few years ago and a local church disbanded its Boar’s Head play. Donations from parishioners and friends make their way into the treasure chests, and angel donors help when the only solution is to have something new made. She keeps a close eye on costumes that are approaching the end of their lives and plans to establish a more formal costume donor program for people who would like to help her keep the Boar’s Head cast looking fabulous.
 

Costume volunteer Susan West (right) making final adjustments

for cast member Karen Taylor, 2014
Shirley Wang, photo

Betsy Harris (left) with Susan West, another very talented seamstress.

 Susan made these aprons for the Costume team, 2014

Shirley Wang, photo

She is assisted by a half-dozen volunteers good with needle and thread. That’s a blessing because top-notch seamstresses are hard to find these days, she says.

Betsy comes to the job with two important sets of skills: those learned in her training in fashion design and illustration, and those learned in running a business with her husband, Chuck. She’s as good with spreadsheets as she is with fine fabrics.

And then there’s the unglamorous work of cleaning. “Part of the job,” she says, “is that you have to be willing to do laundry and ironing.” And do it very carefully. What she’s too modest to say is that personal commitment is a huge part of the job, too. She’s a devoted reader, and it’s telling when it slips out that she has no time for books in December and January.

But then, Betsy and crew read a story in every tunic, sash and cloak they care for – and because they do, the Boar’s Head story heard by thousands every year is that much more powerful.

Remembering Maurice Mandell - Mr. Boar's Head

October 6, 2014

Maurice Mandell, Chief Minstrel 1979-2004 

photo from Boar's Head archive

Maurice Mandell with Boar's Head Director Bob Beiring, about 1989

Photo credit: Michael Wilson

Maurice's operatic voice carried that tune for 35 years in the Boar's Head Festival from 1969 until his retirement in 2004. "In my mind, Maurice was known as "Mr. Boar's Head", and I can never think of anyone else when I hear the Boar's Head Carol.", said Boar's Head Festival director Bob Beiring.

A short clip of the chief minstrel, Maurice Mandell, leads the Boar's Head procession during the 2001 Festival.

Maurice's training was here in Cincinnati at the original Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where he studied operatic voice and also met his long-time wife, Louise, also a trained singer. Maurice's opera career took him to NYC, where he performed at both the Met and NYC Opera. He came back to Cincinnati to start his actual career in Financial Planning in 1968. Gerre Hancock, our Music Director in 1969, needed a new Chief Minstrel with a "voice", and hired Maurice. The rest is history, as Maurice and Louise liked Christ Church so much, they joined our ranks, and then he became a "volunteer singer" in the Festival as a CCC member, and best known of our Boar's Head's Chief Minstrels.

Music and Photography: Different Perspectives on Boar's Head

Editor’s note: Constance Sanders is a parishioner at Christ Church Cathedral and a Boar’s Head cast member. She frequently contributes photographs of parish activities for cathedral publications. Some of her best still life photographs of Boar's Head props is part of the Boar’s Head Art Exhibit .

November 24, 2014

Mummer Wait Constance Sanders
 about 1987

With only two exceptions, I have been involved in every Boar’s Head presentation since 1982. As a member of the choir, I always have sung in the balcony. For several years I served as a mummer wait, greeting people and jumping around the pews, and currently I am one of the quartet of singing waits that comes down the aisle singing “Sons of Eve,” followed by the ‘Wassail Song.” Both costumed roles have been great fun.

 Mummer Wait Constance Sanders, 2005

Singing Wait

Constance Sanders, 2014

From left, Singing Waits Michael Dauterman, Dawn Bruestle,

Constance Sanders, Eric Duell, 2010

C.K. Wang, photo

From left, Singing Waits Ezekiel McCall, Constance Sanders,

Eric Duell, Dawn Bruestle, 2014

Christopher Koon, photo

I have been involved with photography almost as long as I have been with music. I’ve frequently brought my camera to capture the colorful pageant, the “set,” and the behind-the scenes activities. So I have really appreciated this opportunity to photograph some of the props in a more controlled environment.

I first became attracted to still life photography when a fellow musician/photographer started posting his still life images on a camera club bulletin board; he was influenced by the painting style of the old masters. I approached the images in the Boar’s Head props using this style, and naturally, I included some musical subjects.

Still Life with Bells, ©Constance Sanders 2014

Of my six prints in the art exhibit, two, including the one with the bells (pictured above), were captured in what is called a table-top tent—a cube of about 16 inches, with translucent sides and interchangeable backdrops. Lights are positioned outside, on one or both of the sides, to create the desired lighting effect.

Still Life with Mandolin, ©Constance Sanders 2014

The image with the mandolin (pictured above) and three others were made using a technique called light painting. I chose this method because I was not getting the desired background effect for these subjects. I used a small flashlight to “paint” over the subject for a long exposure time in near or total darkness. For these four images, exposure ranged between four and fifteen seconds.

This image with the mandolin is my favorite of the set. I knew immediately that it should be on canvas and in a frame that suited it, and I was happy with the results.

Constance Sanders
Singing Wait

Lighting the Great Festival Candle

August 23, 2014

The Festival candle on the altar, 2014

Susan West, photo

As part of the Boar's Head festival traditions, the Dean must always be directly involved in the performances.  The Yule Sprite bears the tiny light of a burning taper.  From it, the Dean lights the great Festival candle.  This symbolizes the coming of the Christ Child into an unenlightened world.  The light is given to the church not only to preserve, but to extend it throughout the Earth.

Yule Sprite with Dean Gail Greenwell, 2014

C.K. Wang, photo

The Rev. James Snodgrass with the Yule Sprite, late 1980's
Photo from Boar's Head archive

The Rev. Edward R. Sims with the Yule Sprite, 1970's or early 1980's
Photo from Boar's Head archive

Yule Sprite Scott Street with the Rev. Morris F. (Ben) Arnold, 1954

Photo from Boar's Head archive

The Boar's Head

Posted: August 23, 2014
Updated: October 10, 2014

The Festival we know today originated at Queen's College, Oxford, England in 1340. Legend has it that a scholar was studying a book of Aristotle while walking through the forest on his way to Christmas Mass. Suddenly, he was confronted by an angry wild boar. Having no other weapon, the resourceful Oxonian rammed his metal-bound philosophy book down the throat of the charging animal, whereupon the brute choked to death. That night the boar's head, finely dressed and garnished, was borne in procession to the dining room, accompanied by carolers singing "in honor of the King of bliss."

By 1607, an expansive ceremony was in use at St. John's College, Cambridge, England. There, the boar's head was accompanied by "mustard for the eating" and decorated with flags and sprigs of evergreen, bay rosemary and holly. It was carried in state to the strains of the Boar's Head carol, still sung in the Christ Church ceremony.

C.K. Wang, photo

With Boars being in short supply in the forests of Cincinnati, a hog's head is dressed to represent the boar. It is roasted and garnished, but not eaten. Boar's tusks were carved for the first Boar's Head here. The three flags in his head represents the ceremony's British roots, the French Huguenots who brought it to Colonial America and our own nation.

The property crew decorate the Boar's Head.

©2014 Constance Sanders

Many thanks to Suzann Parker Leist for donating the black head for many years. Each year, after a local farm hog is butchered for its meat, the head is deep frozen. It rests in the Cathedral freezer until ready to roast. 

Suzann Parker Leist with the Boar's Head, 2011

The Boar's Head Company
©2010 Constance Sanders 

The Boar's Head Company, about 1958. Frank Pandorf, left 
and Ralph Kendrick, right
Boar's Head photo archive

The Plum Pudding

August 23, 2014

Plum pudding, together with mince pie, are symbols of hospitality and were always on hand to serve guests in medieval times.  Here in the festival, they suggest the fullness of God's gifts to his children.

Susan West,  photo, 2014

Malcolm Dunn (casting as the Poor Man) with the plum pudding, 2006
C.K. Wang, photo

Malcolm Dunn has been the sole baker of the plum pudding since 1996, and his wife, Priscilla, decorates the final product. It’s a year-long process . The preparation starts by soaking candied fruits with brandy in a jar after Christmas until next October when Malcolm gathers the rest of the ingredients and bakes in the first weekend of October. It requires mixing in two batches by hand and bakes in a specially made tin tube pan for 3 hours. When the cake is completely cooled, he wraps it in brandy-soaked cheesecloth and places it in an antique Grace Rush Fruit Cake tin. He stores it in a refrigerator at their daughter's home and "visits" it monthly to re-soak the brandied cheesecloth.

In the morning before the first performance, Malcolm will glaze the entire cake with orange marmalade which has had the rind removed. Priscilla then places blanched almonds which have been coated with marmalade around the outer edge and inner ring. Then pineapple slices are placed around the top of the cake followed by red and green cherries. The cake is then taken to Christ Church Cathedral where the hole is filled with holly etc. and placed on the trencher.

The Plum Pudding Company

As a tradition since Boar’s Head’s beginning here, the plum pudding is cut and shared with the cast and guests following the last performance. The rich, complex flavor is unmatched!

The Waits

August 23, 2014

Before there were clocks, young men in training as guardians of the castle were also trained to mark the hours and days.  They were called waits, which is the medieval term for "watchmen".  Waits also marked the holidays, and the entertainment of the castle often depended upon them. 

In the Middle Ages it was customary for the lord and lady of the manor to provide lavish Christmas feasts for their serfs and vassals. Frequently they came into the castle to sing carols and toast their lord saying, "Wassail!" which means "Good health to you!"

The Waits in the 1950s
Photo from Boar's Head archive