Chorus Master Andrea Drury nods, and 40 blended voices flow out across the candlelit church pews. Drury and Evansville Philharmonic Conductor Laureate Alfred Savia were weaving their musical forces in George Frideric Handelโs โMessiahโ at Trinity United Methodist Church, an Evansville holiday tradition each December.
Drury rehearsed her professional and amateur singers for weeks to deliver the musicโs full emotional impact.
โIn Andrea, chorus members have someone who extensively studied vocal techniques and is an extraordinary soprano herself,โ Savia says. โFor those who havenโt formally studied singing, her rehearsals are like lessons with a very good voice teacher.โ
โI enjoy helping singers find their best singing voice, and develop a passion for singing and choral music,โ Drury says.
After earning her Master of Music in Vocal Performance from The Ohio State University in 2000, Texas-born Drury and her husband Tom โ himself a musician โ moved to Evansville. She led North High Schoolโs choir from 2005 to 2014 before becoming EVSCโs fine arts specialist for vocal music. This is her 11th year leading the philharmonic chorus, with Tom its accompanist.
โNot only is Andrea a fantastic conductor and teacher, she has a stunning voice,โ Philharmonic Music Director Roger Kalia says. And it was on full display in January during the University of Southern Indianaโs inaugural opera โRuth.โ
โThe soprano role she sang is extremely demanding technically and musically, and she did a beautiful job,โ says Kalia, who conducted. The chorus performs up to six times a season and rehearses weekly. Druryโs interest in diverse musical genres is helping Kalia
reach younger audiences.
โI enjoy collaborating with Andrea, because she is a wonderful artistic partner and a joy to work with,โ Kalia says. โWe both want to perform music that inspires the audience.โ
Their recent Pops season opener, โUniverse of Superheroes,โ did just that. It featured music from movies โBlack Pantherโ and โSpidermanโ and video games โHaloโ and โFinal Fantasy.โ In the video game music, Drury had the chorus emulate a synthesizer. โWithout words, the meaning had to come completely from the music,โ she says.
โโUniverseโ brought an entirely new audience to the Victory and was one of our seasonโs most successful concerts,โ Kalia says.
