Conductor and educator Suzi Digby is helping bring choral music for the new generations with programs like the Golden Bridge concert on Feb. 10.
(photo courtesy of Suzi Digby/Golden Bridge)

For Suzi Digby, music is the great connector. On Saturday, Feb. 10, Digby will conduct The Golden Bridge 10th anniversary concert, building a musical bridge from the choral works of the past to choral renaissance of today.

Digby first came to Los Angeles 13 years ago as a visiting professor at the University of Southern California. She teaches for a half-semester each year, as does her husband, Lord John Eatwell. Eatwell, the former president of Queens’ College in Cambridge, teaches economics. Digby instructs choral students.

She brings with her an impressive set of bonafides. She describes herself as having three parallel careers: choral conductor, music educator and arts organization entrepreneur.

In the United Kingdom, she has run a litany of vocal organizations, including the Voice Chamber Choir and the London Youth Choir. Since 2016, she has had her own professional vocal consort, ORA, and she founded the primary music education charity, the Voices Foundation. She has led music throughout the U.K., the United States and Europe. Not to mention that Digby was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) in 2007 due to her unparalleled career in music conducting and education. She is also known as Lady Eatwell, as her husband is a member of the House of Lords.

While imparting her wisdom to students at USC was already full-time work for her L.A. furloughs, Digby wanted to bring something else unique to the West Coast. She sought to merge the contemporary with the past – England’s golden Tudor era meets California’s current golden era.

“One day about 10 years ago, I thought, ‘We are in a new golden age,’” she explained. “There has been a groundswell since the early-1990s of choral activity around the world, from a very, very dangerous start in the early-1990s when singing was disappearing from communities, churches and schools. Now, it’s a thriving world. So, I realized that what’s happened in response to this [groundswell] is there’s a whole new breed of choral composers who are confident, and they are they are producing music which audiences want to hear … [work which] is inventive, which is original, which is exciting and, most important, of the highest quality.”

The Golden Bridge works to highlight this golden age by presenting commissioned works by California composers that are reflections of classics from the renaissance. In conjunction with each piece, the original classical piece is performed. Digby commissioned the new pieces herself.

“For the last 10 years, I’ve been focusing on commissioning new choral music,” Digby said. “I’ve been told by three music publishers that I’m now the most prolific commissioner of new choral music in the world today.”

The Californian composers Richard Danielpour, Nick Strimple and David Norland will all be featured in this year’s concert, which also engages 20 professional singers. Additionally, works by Taverner, Byrd, Weelkes, Purcell, Victoria, Reena Esmail and Morten Lauridsen will be performed. The concert is held at All Saints Episcopal Beverly Hills, home to the Golden Bridge because, Digby said, of its size, community and amazing acoustics.

The performance also includes talks with composers and prolific program notes by preeminent scholars to help deepen the audience’s understanding of the music. The master of ceremonies this year will be former poet laureate of California Dana Gioia.

Music has been Digby’s passion as long as she can remember.

“I started to sing at the age of three and never stopped,” she said. “So, all my activites are related to voice.”

Digby said that live music has given her “soul shifts” throughout her life.

“You get a soul shift in a live performance. If it’s great music, you go to a different place,” she said. “With singers, it’s their body making the sound … If you are within proximity to singers with wonderful voices coming together, you get a sort of a visceral response. You get the tingles. You’re all in the room together experiencing the same thing at the same time.”

Digby considers people singing to be “medicine of the soul,” something human beings need. She also said that the difference between choral work and other works of art, is that choral work has “words, it has text.”

“And so, the composer is able to communicate the meaning of the text that they’re writing, that they’re setting. In an age where we really need to understand others, a lot of composers are becoming very aware of their role to make the world a better place. They write music that really makes their contribution count for the ages. Quite a lot of compact choral composers have become quite political, with a small ‘p,’ in the they want to put across a message of hope and a message of reconciliation,” she said.

The Golden Bridge concert will start at 8 p.m. on Feb. 10 at All Saints Episcopal Church, located at 504 N. Camden Drive. For tickets and information, visit thegoldenbridge.org or eventbrite.com/e/the-golden-bridge-10th-anniversary-tickets-770498029347.

Suzy Digby will lead the Golden Bridge concert at All Saints’ Church in Beverly Hills on Saturday, Feb. 10. (photo courtesy of Suzi Digby)