March 5, 2013

The Bloomington chamber choir Voces Novae performs with artistic integrity and is motivated by social conscience.
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At the heart of the concert was a performance of “Après Moi, le Déluge,” for chorus and cello, with music by Luna Pearl Woolf; the text was a poem by Eleanor Wilner that reflects the pain of those devastated by Katrina. One hears, set to music, mournful, sometimes desperate words…

The music itself, for chorus, is vividly expressive, not an easy listen but befitting literary content and purpose. For cellist, the score amounts to a concerto, musically a very complicated one, laden with technical stumbling blocks. None of them appeared to bother Jacobsen Woollen, the talented Bloomington Native, IU String Academy-trained, who now is a music student at the university of Michigan. He’s a terrific cellist who not only braved and conquered the intricacies but appeared to envelop himself in the emotional power of the music, whether raw or agitated, sawing or soaring. His cello was, in turns, angry, wailing, weeping, imploring, descriptive; he gave a commanding performance.

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By Peter Jacobi
View article at the Herald-Times.