_{By Mike Romero}

When people talk about the “Provo music scene,” the conversation usually tends towards pop music-makers, ranging from mainstream acts with Provo roots, like The Backseat Lovers or Imagine Dragons to various flavors of indies, with recent standout examples like Little Moon. 

However, as Kameron Kavanaugh and Andrew Maxfield like to point out, the scene is broader than the pop music spotlight. 

Kavanaugh, the founder and artistic director of a professional chamber choir called Sound of Ages, came to Provo in 2014 for a master’s degree in choral conducting at BYU. He wasn’t prepared for what he was about to hear. 

“I knew the choral program at BYU was one of the best in the country, and it definitely lived up to its reputation,” he says. “But I didn’t know that there was such a deep bench of vocal talent and such a passion for music-making all along the Wasatch Front.” 

Indeed, many Wasatch Front residents who, as undergraduates, sing at UVU, BYU, the University of Utah, and Westminster end up staying in the area and forming the backbone of a community that makes and supports music. And it’s not limited to choral music or classical genres. 

“I just see this passion for music in the whole scene—it’s the tide that lifts all boats,” says Kavanaugh, who was a rock drummer obsessing over Red Hot Chili Peppers, Queens of the Stone Age, and Muse before an unexpected experience with choral music. 

During his graduate studies, Kavanaugh dove deep into what classical music practitioners call “early music,” meaning the music of the Renaissance, which is predominantly vocal music. “Up until that point, I was leaning into choral music mostly because I saw myself being a choir teacher,” he explains. “But I had this experience listening to recordings of the music of the French composer Guillaume DuFay, and it was as mind-blowing as hearing Muse for the first time. It was as though my entire experience with music had changed in an instant.” 

From that moment, Kavanaugh felt an internal tug toward forming an ensemble to perform the Renaissance music he was discovering. “I couldn’t believe that something so old could sound so fresh. I wanted everyone else to hear it, too. I called the group ‘Sound of Ages’ to communicate that the music is timeless.” 

And although Sound of Ages, a transcendent vocal powerhouse, was formed to sing Renaissance music, its repertoire grew to include modern works by composers who share a fascination with the features and techniques of the Renaissance. 

One such composer is Sound of Ages’ frequent collaborator and now “composer-in-residence” Andrew Maxfield. 

“The first CDs I bought with my own money when I was a teenager in about 1996 were Eric Clapton’s Unplugged, REM’s Automatic For the People, and an album of the Hilliard Ensemble singing the music of an English pre-Renaissance composer named John Dunstable,” says Maxfield. “It’s maybe a weird combination, but it’s true that early music has been part of my musical imagination since I first started composing.” 

Maxfield had just finished graduate studies at the Boston Conservatory and moved back to Provo in 2020 when he and Kavanaugh crossed paths. The two first geeked out over shared interests in old music, but quickly began collaborating on new music as well. Their collaboration has yielded multiple new choral works and concerts, including a recent performance at Carnegie Hall. 

“We’re both fascinated by aspects of music that seem timeless,” says Kavanaugh. “And whether we’re singing William Byrd [an English Renaissance composer], one of Andrew’s new creations, or music by some other contemporary composer, we want to share that magic with the audience.” 

Kavanaugh and Maxfield’s next major collaboration will arrive in November. The project, called “Book of the Way,” is a concert-length work for chamber choir and a jazz-influenced instrumental ensemble, written by Maxfield, based on the Tao te Ching (a cornerstone sacred text of Taoist philosophy). “To my pop music friends, I would call it a concept album,” says Maxfield. 

Whether Kavanaugh and Maxfield are diving into Renaissance music or new works and wide-ranging collaborations, they’re on a mission to not just prove that there’s room in the Provo music scene for world-class vocal music, but that their kind of music—an eclectic and energetic pairing of very old and very new—is a sound for the ages. 

“Book of the Way” will be performed November 6 at the Springville Museum of Art and November 7 at the University of Utah. More details are available at soundofageschoir.com.