Lee’s Summit Summer Singers & Northland Summer Singers Present Inspiring Concerts

The Summer Singers of Lee’s Summit present Mozart and his American Contemporaries July 27

Summer is a time of abundance. The farmers’ markets are overflowing with ripe tomatoes, succulent ears of corn, enormous zucchini and fragrant cantaloupes.

Thanks to William Baker’s Choral Foundation, Kansas City can enjoy a similar bounty of glorious choral music. Two of the outstanding choruses under the Choral Foundation’s umbrella are presenting concerts that will make your summer soar.

On July 27 at 4 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lee’s Summit, the Summer Singers of Lee’s Summit led by Baker will present the fascinating program Mozart and His American Contemporaries and on Aug. 10 at 2 p.m. at the Second Baptist Church of Liberty, the Choral Foundation’s newest ensemble, the Northland Summer Singers conducted by Daniel Baker will present a joyful program of Vivaldi and Martini.

“We have four groups locally,” Baker said. “The Summer Singers of Kansas City started in 1999. The Summer Singers of Lee Summit in 2014 and the new Northland Summer Singers just started this year. And we now have a handbell group, the Summer Ringers Academy. It's a training session for beginning and intermediate handbell ringers. It's based in Lee summit that started in 2024. Singers and Ringers.”

The Summer Ringers, by the way, will present a concert Aug. 16 at 6 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lee’s Summit.

One might think that because the young United States was so removed from Europe that it had no serious musical culture. Mozart and His American Contemporaries seeks to disprove that. The program will include Mozart’s Missa Brevis in D, as well as works by American colonial composers conducted by Baker and music from the 18th century American Moravian community conducted by Niccole Williams.

“I think it's wonderful to consider what was happening in different parts of the world at the same time,” Baker said. “Mozart, at the time that he wrote the Missa Brevis in D was 18 years old. At 18 years old, he was already an established, mature, veteran composer. The Missa Brevis is joyful, it's exuberant, and it's Mozart, so it's elegant. And it uses a small orchestra, which works nicely for our 50 voice summer singers of Lee's Summit. It's not particularly an easy piece, but it's not overwhelming.”

While Mozart was composing masterpieces in Europe, Americans were starting to create their own musical culture. Along with Mozart, works by William Billings will be performed.

“William Billings I think is legitimately considered America's first composer,” Baker said. “He was very much a frontier kind of guy. It was said that he was ungainly in appearance, one leg was shorter than the other, he was blind in one eye, he had a loud bass voice that was irritating. One writer said that he had very little to recommend him. He quit school when his father passed away, so his schooling of any kind was limited and we really don't know for sure if he had any musical training at all, but he created this robust, vigorous, creative, and multi-dimensional technique of fugue tunes.”

Baker’s choir will sing four pieces by Billings that show show four different sides of his compositional work. 

“Chester, which is a Revolutionary War fight song, I guess can be considered the fight song of the American Revolution,” Baker said. “He talks about the determination of the Americans for independence, and he throws in a stanza that insults by name British generals, which is really kind of fun. We’ll also do Kittery, which is a paraphrase of the Lord's Prayer, and then, When Jesus Wept, which is one of the most tender and beautiful and insightful and inspirational round settings. And then a setting of text from the Song of Solomon, I Am the Rose of Sharon, which is exuberant and sensual and loving and fun. By the way, I learned recently that Billings directed a church choir and Paul Revere sang in his church choir.”

You don’t get more American than that.

Baker will also lead the choir in hymns by Daniel Read, Justin Morgan and Jeremiah Ingalls.

William Baker

Antonio Vivaldi

Among the Choral Foundation’s ever-expanding family of ensembles, the Northland Summer Singers conducted by Daniel Baker is the newest.

“As we're working to expand our summer programming, we thought the Northland area in Liberty is one of the fastest growing sections of the Kansas City region,” Baker said. “Daniel Baker, who's not related to me, but he's a brilliant, brilliant singer, brilliant conductor, and just all-around great guy. We have 60 members in the Northland Summer Singers, and they're really, really doing well. One of the fastest starts we've ever had for one of our summer choruses.”

That group’s concert on Aug. 10 will feature music by Antonio Vivaldi and Vivaldi’s lesser-known contemporary Giovanni Battista Martini.

Martini’s choral music is rich in polyphony, with complex interweaving of vocal lines. He often balanced a structured, formal style with expressive melodies. His sacred compositions, like Masses and motets, are noted for their elegant counterpoint and clear harmonic structures, embodying the Baroque’s ornate yet disciplined approach.

The Vivaldi works on the program are his motet Beatus Vir (Blessed is the Man) and his very popular but difficult to perform Gloria.

“There are a couple of movements in it that are really pretty tricky,” Baker said. “But, like Mozart, it's so well composed that it falls into place. The most difficult chorus in the Vivaldi Gloria was not written by Vivaldi. The Cum Sancto, the last movement of the work, was written by a fellow named Ruggieri, and Vivaldi liked it so much that he attached it to this Gloria that he composed, which back then was a sign of great admiration and honor, but would now be a source of great litigation.”

Daniel Baker

Niccole Williams

The American Moravian community has deep roots, going back to the teachings of the 15th century Czech reformer Jan Hus. They've been in America since the 18th century, known for their emphasis on education, music, and community life. Their traditions include love feasts and beautiful choral music. Niccole Williams will lead the choir in several examples of that music.

“The Moravians were very much into European-style classical music,” Baker said. “In fact, some of the Moravian composers are credited with building the first American-made string instruments. The Moravian schools and churches would have orchestras and choirs singing in the European tradition. A lot of the Moravian music of this era in the last quarter of the 18th century sounds like the music of European composers Haydn or C.P.E. Bach.”

An 18th Century Moravian Marriage Ceremony

Giovanni Battista Martini

The Choral Foundation is in possession of a magnificent set of handbells, which are put to great use by another Choral Foundation ensemble, Kansas City Bronze.

“Kansas City Bronze is our elite auditioned six octave handbell ensemble,” Baker said. “We very often get requests from people who say, ‘I'm a musician, I'm a pianist, I'm a clarinet player, a flute player, but I’ve always loved handbells and I'd like to explore handbell ringing.’ So we created the Summer Ringers Academy to provide a summer experience for people who are musicians but have never played handbells, or who have played handbells in a very elementary group and want to increase their skills.”

The Summer Ringers Academy is led by Amy Chenery Valmassey, who is the handbell director at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Lee’s Summit. The Academy will present a concert Aug. 16 at St. Paul’s.

“Last year, we had their first concert with their first season, which was a great joy, and this year, we're doing the second,” Baker said. “One of the things that's really fun with the Summer Ringers Academy concert is after the program they do what they call a handbell petting zoo, where people in the audience are allowed to come up to the tables and pick up the various bells and ring them themselves and have a sense of what that's about. We think that Summer Ringers Academy will be a good training ground for people who would like to audition at some point for Kansas City Bronze.”

The Summer Singers of Lee’s Summit present Mozart and His American Contemporaries at 4 p.m. July 27 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Lee’s Summit, 416 SE Grand Ave. $28.52-$81.88.

The Northland Summer Singers perform the Music of Vivaldi and Martini at 2 p.m. Aug. 10 at the Second Baptist Church in Liberty, 300 E. Kansas St. $28.52-$81.88.

The Summer Ringers Academy in Concert at 6 p.m. Aug. 16 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lee’s Summit, 416 SE Grand Ave. Free.

For tickets and more information, www.festivalsingers.org.