The Texas Tech University School of Music will host a showcase concert of all four of its choirs at 7:30 p.m. Friday (Sept. 29) in Hemmle Recital Hall. The "Kaleidoscope of Choirs" concert, which takes place during the university’s Family Weekend, will feature the University Singers, the Matador Singers (men’s chorale), the Women’s Chorale, and the University Choir.
Many choral conductors and guest instrumental performers will join together with the massed vocal students of the School of Music to perform selections that fit the theme of the concert, “Together We Sing.” All four choirs will perform as a combined ensemble for the first and the last works on the concert: respectively, Joan Szymko’s aptly titled “It Takes a Village” and the Texas Tech alma mater, “The Matador Song.”
The concert will be the Texas Tech debut of the School of Music’s newly appointed Director of Choral Studies, Dr. Alan Zabriskie. As the director of the University Choir, he will lead that group through three pieces. Baroque composer Alessandro Scarlatti’s exuberant “Exsultate Deo” and Japanese composer Ko Matsushita’s enthusiastic setting of Psalm 100 (“Jubilate Deo”) express a theme of grateful song. Kim André Arnesen’s “Flight Song” is an ode to the healing and transformative power of choral singing, with a text by celebrated Welsh choral poet Euan Tait.
The unique colors of the Women’s Chorale will present two works under the direction of Dr. Carolyn Cruse and graduate conductor Ryan Person. “Columba aspexit” is a modern work by Tarik O’Regan, based on a mystical twelfth-century chant that is attributed to Hildegard von Bingen. Z. Randall Stroope’s setting of the widely recognized Psalm 23 is accompanied by solos on flute and oboe.
Graduate conductors Jonathon Barranco and Justin Nelson will lead the mighty sound of the Matador Singers. Percussionists will join the all-male choir for a rendition of a rousing folk song called “Tshotsholoza,” originally from Zimbabwe but popularized in South Africa. A new and faithful setting by Dan Forrest of the timeless Irish hymn called “Be Thou My Vision” will also be performed.
The University Singers will also perform a popular hymn and a southern African selection with percussion. Graduate conductors Minji Kim and Justin Nelson will lead their group for the Zulu song “Jabula Jesu” and a shimmering rendition of the Eucharistic hymn “Ave verum corpus” by time-honored British composer Edward Elgar.
The concert is free and open to the public.
CONTACT: Alicia Caicedo-Cavazos, business coordinator for Choirs/Opera Theatre/Orchestras, School of Music, Texas Tech University, (806) 834-6734 or alicia.caicedo-cavazos@ttu.edu
