What is it about choral music that makes me feel like a ball of sound-light is breaking out of my chest, piercing my loneliness with the pure power of its melodic force? Why does a soprano’s voice seem to clean the air of impurities? How do I explain the visceral thrill I experience when I hear a tenor’s high F note ripple through a soprano’s steel-beam E as the whole chorus joins for the first time in the Voices of Ascension’s version of Josquin des Prez’s “Ave Maria”? The overflowing tenor, the power of all four vocal ranges straining to sing the Latin word for “solemn” in the most joyous, melodic way possible, seems to acknowledge the intensity of the struggle to enjoy life despite the fact that every ounce of joy obscures a pound of pain…
