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NSU Collegiate Choir and Chamber Singers Present Concert
Released April 18, 2008
(ABERDEEN, SD) The Northern State University Department of Music is pleased to present the Collegiate Choir and the Chamber Singers Annual Spring Concert on Sunday, April 27, at 2 p.m. on the main stage of the Northern State University Johnson Fine Arts Center. Both ensembles are under the direction of Dr. Timothy Woods, Director of Choral Activities at NSU, and assisted by Professor Allan Jacobson.
This year’s concert will feature masterpieces by three American composers with works from other parts of the world.
The concert will open with the Collegiate Choir performing “The Peaceable Kingdom,” by Randall Thompson. The work is in eight movements for unaccompanied choir. The text is from Isaiah and the work’s subject and style “emerged from the composer’s impressions after viewing a painting by Edward Hicks entitled ‘The Peaceable Kingdom.’ The painting depicts and quotes Isaiah 11:6-9: ‘And the wolf will dwell with the lamb.’” (Michael O’Neal) The painting presently hangs in the Denver Museum of Art.
The Chamber Singers will perform the next American masterpiece, Samuel Barber’s “Agnus Dei.” This work is his own arrangement of his “Adagio for Strings, Opus 11” which was used quite extensively in the movie “Platoon.” It should be noted that the “Adagio for Strings” is his arrangement of the 2nd movement of his string quartet.
The Chamber Singers will also sing the third and most recent American masterpiece, Eric Whitacre’s “Cloudburst.” The work is for chorus, piano and percussion and is a setting of Octavio Paz’s poem, “El cántaro roto” (The broken water-jar). In 1993 it received the first prize in the American Choral Directors Association “Composers of the Future” competition. In the 15 years since the award the work has become a standard and favorite of collegiate and professional choirs and audiences.
The concert will be filled out with music from around the world. The Chamber Singer will perform from Great Britain the William Byrd Renaissance motet “Ave verum corpus” from Canada the “Feller From Fortune,” “a rollicking ditty… first collected in 1955 by the late Gerald E. Doyle of St. John’s in his booklet, ‘Old-Time Songs of Newfoundland.’”
The Collegiate Choir women will then perform an unusual work from Bulgaria, “Ergen Deda” by Peter Lyondev. The piece first came to public attention in the late 1980’s on the Grammy Award winning album, “Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares” by The Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir. The Collegiate Choir women have been working to imitate the tone colors of the Grammy Award winning chorus, and are sure to surprise our audience.
The concert will conclude with the rousing Nigerian Christmas song, “Betelehemu” for SATB chorus and percussion. This piece too has been a favorite across our country over the last 15 years.
There is no charge to attend the concert and the public is cordially invited to attend.
About Northern State University
Northern State University is a premier residential institution characterized by outstanding instruction, extraordinary community relations, and unparalleled extracurricular opportunities. In August of 2007 NSU was named by US News and World Report as one of the best undergraduate public institutions in the Midwest. For more information about NSU, visit our Web site at www.northern.edu.
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