The annual Spring Concert by the Berea College Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, conducted by Dr. Stephen Bolster, will be held on Sunday, April 14 at 3 p.m. in Gray Auditorium on the Berea College campus. The choral concert will be accompanied by Lindsay Clavere on the piano and a variety of guest musicians and dancers. There is no admission charge.
The first half of the concert celebrates the centennial anniversaries of composers Benjamin Britten (b. 1913) and Giuseppe Verdi (b. 1813). The Concert Choir will perform Britten’s Festival Te Deum, Op. 32 with Berea College Organist Javier Clavere on the organ, and will sing the famous Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi’s opera Nabucco. Also included are two choruses from the Spring section of Franz Joseph Haydn’s The Seasons, and two contemporary choral works celebrating light—Lux aeterna by Argentine composer Fernando Moruja and Northern Lights by Ola Gjeilo. The first half will conclude with two movements of the Missa Kenya by Paul Basler for choir, French Horn, and African drums.
The second half of program features several pieces performed by the all-male Chamber Singers, including anti-war songs by Lon Beery and Fenno Heath and a cappella pop pieces Route 66, Moondance, and Over the Rainbow. The concert will end with performances by the Concert Choir featuring guest dancers– an arrangement of a Piazzolla tango, Introducción al ángel, performed with two dance couples from Berea’s Social and Folk Dance course and Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag danced by couples from the Lexington Historical Dance Society.