A modern departure for old-music singers

It seems entirely appropriate that the four women who comprise the early music vocal ensemble Anonymous 4 would get snowed in in Omaha on Monday, the day after premiering their touring program “Wolcum Yule.” The songs are wintry and Christmasy, and one is even called “Snow Carol.”

But soprano Johanna Maria Rose didn’t appreciate the charming synchronicity of it all.

“It was a day from hell,” she said, by phone from tour stop No. 2, Arcata, Calif.

The “Yule” program is something of a departure for Anonymous 4 -- which also includes Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer and Jacqueline Horner, whose voices are almost equal in range, tending toward soprano. It started in 1986 after the original members (all but Horner) came together at a medieval culture workshop at a monastery. This is the first concert they’ve done that features no medieval music. And it is only the third project that involves not just modern or contemporary music, but also brand-new music, songs the quartet has commissioned.

With a dozen mostly medieval discs to its name, the quartet might be tempting fate. Critics everywhere like to compare them to a chorus of angels, an ethereal effect created by their dead-on pitch and unique timbral blend, sustained by a steady diet of mostly Latin plainsong and chant. That formula has sold more than a million recordings worldwide, including their latest, “La Bele Marie,” which hit No. 7 on Billboard’s classical chart and stayed there for 15 weeks, and “11,000 Virgins,” featuring songs by Hildegard of Bingen.

But, in fact, the “Yule” program has plenty of connection to Anonymous 4’s modus operandi: It’s the product of prodigious research. The group usually tours and records based on one research project at a time. The “Yule” program is taking its live bow through Dec. 20; it won’t be released on CD until next fall..

Rose, who shares research duties with Genensky, says her “Yule” studies began last year.

“I was the one who was the shepherdess for this program. A friend in Germany helped me dig up some stuff, and she sent me various collections and books about the subject. I also used the ‘New Oxford Book of Carols,’ where I found a carol from Dorset, in England, the west country. I was able to contact the Dorset County Museum and have them e-mail me JPEGs [compressed graphic images] of manuscripts from the 1800s.”

The other element of the program, newworks, brings up a different kind of research. Which composers do you ask to create a carol, and what makes something a carol?

Rose says it comes from the French word carole, a dance done in a circle. “It’s believed that it derived from ancient pagan rites, so the term became known for songs that had a kind of call and response, which then turned into a verse and refrain.

“Carols were not at first specific to winter, or Christmas, at all,” Rose adds. “There were carols or round dances for different kinds of festivals. Eventually, in the later Middle Ages, the carol became more specific to winter and Christmas. The form can vary now; it no longer needs to have a verse and refrain and can be more free. A carol is generally accepted as a short piece that has to do with winter celebrations.”

Ergo: the element of snow. One of the composers Anonymous 4 commissioned is Briton Jocelyn Pook, perhaps best known for her score for Stanley Kubrick’s final film, “Eyes Wide Shut.” Pook was recommended to Rose by John Schaefer, host of a syndicated radio program, “New Sounds.”

Pook set her “Snow Carol” to a poem she asked England’s poet laureate, Andrew Motion, to write. Although it makes no reference to Christmas, Rose points out that it has snow imagery and a reference to angels.

“That’s as close as it comes to being a carol. It’s all around the edges; it’s not stated directly at all. It’s a carol because Pook says it’s one,” Rose adds with a laugh.

The other contemporary composer is another Briton, Peter Maxwell Davies, who has written chamber music, operas, symphonies and film scores. His “A Calendar of Kings,” Rose says, is a dissonant, technically difficult, challenging piece. “We picked Davies -- we had heard his music and he’s obviously very well known -- because we were interested in trying something a bit more dense, more crunchy, which his music tends to be. It has a beautiful text about the quest of the three kings looking for their star.”

Davies has called the work, set to an existing poem by George Mackay Brown, a musical journey reflecting the journey of the three kings. “However,” Rose says, “it bears absolutely no relation to the original meaning of the word ‘carol.’ ”

Angels seem to be a recurring theme. Anonymous 4’s next program is called “American Angels.” Santa Monica-born Genensky is doing the research for this project, an exploration of early shape note and gospel songs from the 18th and 19th century.

In a nutshell, says Genensky, the project is about the “roots of roots music.... We go back to the very earliest American rural sacred music and follow the trail through the 19th century and country gospel. The first concert is in April as part of a semester-long residency we’re doing at Princeton University. After that, we return to our medieval roots with a second Hildegard program.”

For now, Christmas music attracts audiences.

“Carols are popular because they are a connection to ancient traditions,” Rose says. “In spite of the fact that we have lost so many connections, the cycle of the year is something I think is so ancient, so part of us. Even though we’re not aware of it as we used to be, it’s reflected in the original cycle of the carol, the circular nature.”

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‘Wolcum Yule’

Where: UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall, Westwood

When: Tonight, 8 p.m., Sunday, 7 p.m.

Price: $15-$40

Contact: (310) 825-2101