This weekend, ‘Noah's Flood' rises on a massive tide of youth performers

Boston Globe

02-05-2025

Organ, another said, and Hodgdon lit up. 'Has anyone heard the organ in Symphony Hall?' he asked the kids. A smattering of hands rose into the air. 'It's incredible,' Hodgdon promised. And at the end of 'Noah's Flood,' he later told them, 'it goes crazy.' A few young faces broke into grins of anticipation.
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These singers represented only a small contingent of the mass of musicians — most of them under 18 — that will converge on Symphony Hall on Saturday to give one free performance of 'Noah's Flood,' conducted by BLO music director David Angus and stage directed by American Repertory Theater's Dayron J. Miles.
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The total count of personnel approaches 400, including musicians from Boston Children's Chorus, Boston String Academy, Boston Recorder Orchestra, New England Conservatory Prep, and Back Bay Ringers, among others. An additional handful of young visual artists from Artists for Humanity are making animal masks for the ensemble members.
'Noah's Flood' — sometimes spelled 'Noye's Fludde,' in keeping with its origin in the medieval Chester Mystery Plays — is being presented by BLO, and a handful of BLO professionals are playing crucial roles both on and offstage, including Hodgdon and Angus as well as baritone David McFerrin and mezzo-soprano Alexis Peart, the two professional singers playing Noah and Mrs. Noah. However, this isn't a 'BLO performance,' said Angus. 'It's a kids and community thing.'
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Angus's personal connection to Britten's music goes back to his own childhood as a schoolboy chorister in the choir of King's College Cambridge, in which he sang in a handful of concerts with Britten conducting and the composer's longtime partner, Peter Pears, performing. 'I got to know him and his music, and the excitement of being part of a big thing,' Angus said.
That kind of experience is what Angus and Miles want to create for the performers and the sold-out
Symphony Hall audience on Saturday.
'I wanted 'Noah's Flood' to feel like a community came together and sort of crafted a story,' said Miles, the associate artistic director at ART, who previously directed a public theater program at the Dallas Theater Center. 'No pun intended, but when we're able to underscore the sort of human need to create and to be artists together, it just cements the spark of imagination and creativity in our young people in a way that is powerful, full, and permanent.'
Vikram Banerjee, center, rehearses for "Noah's Flood" with VOICES Boston.
JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE
'Noah's Flood' was written specifically so that children of varying musical abilities and levels of onstage confidence could participate, Hodgdon said. There are some named solo roles, such as Noah's children and Mrs. Noah's 'gossips' — an antiquated word for female friends, and Saturday's performance has those handled by high school-aged singers from Boston Children's Chorus.
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Similarly, a core group of professional players and advanced students handle the most difficult music, but some of the violin parts only require that a child be able to play on open strings. The entire audience is also invited to join the cast in singing hymn tunes at certain points; these would have been familiar for the original 1950s British audience, but they're not as common for modern Americans, so Angus will teach the audience on Saturday before the show begins in hopes everyone will join the chorus.
'By the end, when they're all playing and singing, and the entire audience is joining in the hymns, you'll have two-and-a-half thousand people all performing together,' Angus said. 'It's a pretty mind-blowing experience.'
Because the cast and crew is so massive, the entirety of the ensemble will only get one full dry run on Saturday morning at Symphony Hall a few hours before showtime, after practicing in their own groups. Hodgdon and Angus have been visiting each participating ensemble at their own rehearsals with the goal that everyone will be ready to play their part without much adjustment, but that doesn't mean there aren't last-minute additions and changes.
While the children took a break at VOICES Boston rehearsal on Monday, Hodgdon and VOICES music director Dan Ryan conferred off to the side about how to best ensure the animals process smoothly through the aisles of Symphony Hall. Might VOICES be able to spare a few adults to guide them?, Hodgdon asked.
No problem, Ryan said. They had some conservatory-trained staff who would be 'just thrilled to wear an animal mask and release their inner child.'
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Because the VOICES singers have been mostly focused on their upcoming production of Dean Burry's 'The Hobbit,' Monday marked the first time they touched the hymns and alleluias of 'Noah's Flood,' and 12-year-old Julieta Ortiz said she was surprised to learn how many other kids would be participating. 'I wasn't expecting such a big orchestra to be playing with us, and so many different ensembles. I thought there were going to be one or two,' she said.
Naila Delgado-Matin, 14, was unfazed. 'The music is catchy in your mind, and easy to remember,' she said. 'So as long as we practice more on Wednesday and at home, I think we should be pretty set.'
NOAH'S FLOOD
May 3, 2 p.m. Symphony Hall.
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at