Longtime choral director singing a new song

April Duvic has been busy for decades. That will reach a peak over the next week, as Duvic — barely back from a five-day trip to Hawaii with the Clark College Women’s Choral Ensemble — leads three choral groups through three ambitious concerts of American classics, gospel spirituals, international experiments and one world premiere that was penned in her honor.

Then Duvic will relax and take a breath. She means to keep busy — that’s a way of life for a music teacher, choral director and performer — but not at Clark College. Duvic is retiring after 26 years of musical and educational service to the school.

More than anything, she said, she’ll miss the talent and diversity of students of who come to her music classes and choral groups from different levels and backgrounds. She appreciates the nontraditional Clark students who have grown up and lived adult lives before deciding to return to school; she equally appreciates the young Running Start kids who come over to Clark while still in high school, she said.

“They wouldn’t be doing music if they didn’t love it,” she said. “Music is a great equalizer. Everyone is striving for the greater good.”

You can sample that good as Duvic concludes her Clark career with these concerts: “This Is the Day,” featuring the Clark College Women’s Choral Ensemble, on June 6; “The Rhythms of Life,” featuring the Clark College Chorale, on June 10; and “The Promise of Living,” with the Clark College Concert Choir and Concert Band, on June 11.

The June 6 concert will mark the world premiere of “Music,” a piece dedicated to Duvic and the women’s ensemble, by maestro Donald Appert, Duvic’s colleague at Clark. It is a musical setting of poetry by Wilfred Owen. Alumni of the group will join in.

Dreams of Welk

Duvic grew up north of Seattle in Mount Vernon, which she called a nurturing small town with good music programs in the schools and her church. Duvic was a natural musician from early on, and said she used to practice her piano while dreaming of the ultimate success: playing on “The Lawrence Welk Show” on TV.

But she was also practical, she said, and didn’t figure on music as a career. She studied journalism, history and political science and considered a career in law. But she gladly got “sucked back in and majored in music at Whitman College.” She followed that with a master’s in teaching from Portland State University.

“It doesn’t matter what you teach, what the area is — teaching is an art and a skill, in and of itself,” she said. She has loved meeting and developing all those different students at all their different levels, she said; and she has appreciated the way that music and performing arts are supported at Clark — despite budget squeezes that have curtailed the arts in schools all around the nation.

Clark County’s secondary schools are fortunate to have strong music programs and great instructors, she said, and those students know they can continue at Clark College. You don’t have to major in music to enjoy being part of that scene. Duvic herself will be part of it for a little while longer: although she’s begun packing up her office on campus, she will personally conduct auditions this summer for the college’s choral groups for the 2016-2017 school year. That way, she said, she will leave the situation in excellent shape for her successor, who has already been hired: Jacob Funk will come this fall from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and take over as Clark’s director of choirs.

After 26 busy years at Clark, starting as a voice instructor and advancing to choral director, Duvic said she’s ready to play a little.

Dreams of play

At 62, Duvic has not quite reached classic retirement age, but her husband, Greg, has already closed out a demanding career as a Portland police officer. He has been steadfast and supportive through her history of hard work and unpredictable schedules, she said. “Teaching is not an 8-to-5 job. I’m gone a lot. I’m taking choirs to festivals. I’m always busy,” she said.

Now, she said, she and Greg have decided to kick back and enjoy life a bit more. They have no children. “We are young and healthy enough to play together for as many years as possible. We want to play as hard as we’ve worked,” Duvic said. “It’s time for the bucket list.”

But don’t expect Duvic to vanish from the musical and educational scenes. She’s up for subbing for her friends the excellent choral directors at local high schools, she said; she intends to give workshops and master classes; she remains a busy member of numerous music-teaching associations and is a certified adjudicator in Oregon; and she sings with a top-level group called Chor Anno, based in Vancouver and made up almost entirely of choral directors from all around the Pacific Northwest.

“Chor Anno” is not-quite-right Latin for “annual choir,” and Duvic said the name means to underline that choral directors are all so busy, they can only prepare one program per year. This year they’ll present it on Sept. 17 at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Vancouver and on Sept. 18 at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Camas.

It’s even possible that Duvic will not only direct musicals but get on stage to sing and act herself — as she loves to do but hasn’t had time for recently, she said.

What’s her dream role? Maria Callas in “Master Class,” she said. That’s most appropriate: “Master Class,” by Terrence McNally, imagines what went on during the classes that opera diva Maria Callas taught at the Juilliard School in the early 1970s. In the play, Callas comes off as a scary and self-absorbed prima donna who’s mostly interested in her own past glories.

That’s not Duvic, who looks forward to a fun future. But it’s “a fantastic part to play,” she said.