By Sarah McMillin, Asst. Living & Arts Editor
Susquehanna’s university choir and chamber singers will be joined by the Midd-West High School choir to perform their fall concert, where they will also be debuting a new piece.
The concert will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 8 in Stretansky Concert Hall.
The high school choir will be directed by Devin Flynt will sing a set of their own as well as sing a piece with the university choir.
Susquehanna’s director of choral activities and conductor of the university choir Amy Voorhees said, “We are excited to bring high school students and their families to campus for a collaborative performance.”
The choir will also be debuting the piece “A Survival Plan of Sorts,” by Australian-American composer Melissa Dunphy. Dunphy was commissioned for this piece as part of the women in music festival that the music department held earlier in the fall semester.
“The music embodies our innate human thirst for knowledge and how we might find comfort in books to better understand the complexities of life,” Voorhees said.
In addition to Dunphy’s piece, the choirs will be singing works by Mozart, Bruckner, Susan LaBarr, Ola Gjeilo and Sydney Guillaume. Voorhees has said that the favorite piece from the choir seems to be Labarr’s “Grace Before Sleep.” For senior choir manager Katy Trunz, her favorite is “Tchaka” by Guillaume.
“This song was so fun to learn and everyone put in so much work to make it great,” Trunz said. “Especially with the new movement we have added for the November concert,” Trunz added.
Many of the songs in the November concert will be travelling with the choir in March when they go on their choir tour. This year, the choir will be visiting churches and schools in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. The choir goes on a tour every spring break to a different area. A few years ago, they did a New England tour, but many of the performances were cancelled due to snow.
The university choir is the larger choral group, consisting of about 60 students from all graduation years and various majors. The chamber singers are a smaller group of about 20 students who are mostly music majors and minors or students with performance grants.
“Chamber singers [sing] more intense pieces that are intimately sung with no conductor, so the relationship is a very important aspect among members,” Trunz said.
For Voorhees, conducting and teaching the ensembles is a passion. While the composition of the groups change each year with seniors leaving and first-year students entering, the core of the group and how it is directed remains the same.
“My favorite part about conducting/teaching any ensemble is working with the singers to make music that creates beauty in the world and enriches our lives,” Voorhees said. “I love the exploration of new music and new sounds that are created solely through the human voice. Choral music requires singers to individually contribute to one unified goal.”
The university choir and chamber singers will also be performing at Susquehanna’s annual candlelight service in December, along with the university chorale and various other music groups. The university chorale concert will take place at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 10 in Stretansky Concert Hall.
