The Choral Union of Kellogg Community College will present its annual Singing in the Spring concert this year with “Music in Sacred Spaces: A Pre-European Concert Tour Program.”
The concert will feature a choir of approximately 45 singers with additional student and faculty performers and will begin at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 27, at First Presbyterian Church, 111 Capital Ave. NE, Battle Creek. Admission is free, but a freewill offering will be collected to support the choirs’ summer concert tour of Italy.
“There is truly something for everyone at this year’s concert,” Dr. Gerald Blanchard, artistic director of the KCC Choral Union and a vocal music professor at the College, said. “The range is vast and packed with quality. I can promise you that the finale of this concert will have the audience on their feet.”
The concert will feature classical music in three parts:
- “Music for Sacred Spaces” will include works by great European classical composers of organ, solo vocal and choral repertoire, Blanchard said. Featured composers will include Giovanni Battista Pescetti, Giuseppe Pitoni and Ludovico da Viadana, among others. A special work featured in this segment of the concert is composed by Costas Dafnis, who is a KCC choral alumnus. Blanchard said Dafnis’ composition, “Virgo Mater Regina,” will have its Michigan debut at the concert. Other composers featured will include Giovanni Asola, J.S. Bach, Franz Biebl, F.J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart, Giovanni Palestrina and Randall Thompson.
- “Music for the Heart” is “more of a mix bag of works,” Blanchard said, with love being the common theme. Here audiences will be treated to a few operatic choruses and an aria from Mozart’s acclaimed opera, “Le Nozze di Figaro” (“The Marriage of Figaro”). Blanchard said “a little vocal jazz” will accompany the operatic selections for good measure.
- “Music for the Spirit” will feature a wide range of pieces, from madrigals and Italian frottola to animal songs and spirituals, Blanchard said. Composers featured will include Marco Cara, Aaron Copland, Jester Hairston, Jack Halloran, Orlando di Lasso and Orazio Vecchi.
The KCC Choral Union consists of members of the residential KCC choirs, including the Branch County Community Chorus, Concentus Vocal Ensemble, Kellogg Singers and Women’s Chorus. The choirs’ summer concert tour will be the Choral Union’s second international tour; the group performed a concert tour of Ireland in the summer of 2012.
Singing in the Spring is part of a 2013-14 season made possible by the generosity of several sponsors, including Randall Foods, Inc., the choirs’ corporate partner. To donate in support of future choir programming, checks made payable to Kellogg Community College may be dropped off at any campus location. Contributions for the Choral Union’s concert tour of Italy may be made online at www.gofundme.com/4py40c.
For more information about music programming at Kellogg Community College, visit www.kellogg.edu/music.
The above group photo of the KCC choirs is courtesy of Ed Williams.
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