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Life & Arts

Moores' Chorale, Women's Chorus head off campus

by KAREN KLUCZNIK
The Daily Cougar

With the craziness of finals just around the corner, a break spent listening to beautiful, serene music in a beautiful, serene place may be just what you need to get through it all. If so, the place to be tonight is St. Paul's United Methodist Church as the Moores School of Music presents the Concert Chorale and the Concert Women's Chorus.

"We feel that an important part of our mission is to interact with the community, and off-campus performances are great ways to do that," Betsy Weber, conductor and associate director of the Concert Chorale, said. "As wonderful as our Opera House is, it doesn't have an organ, so a church, particularly one with the wonderful acoustics of St. Paul's Methodist, is ideal for a variety of reasons."

Comprised of 40 advanced singers, the Concert Chorale is the school's premier large choral ensemble. The group has been featured at conventions and has performed in Mexico City with professional orchestras.

The Concert Women's Chorus is a select chorus of intermediate to advanced choral singers and provides its members with training in musicianship and collaborative singing.

"The singers who comprise the Concert Chorale are very skilled, very talented and very dedicated," Weber said. "There are a number of exceptional female singers who make up the membership of Concert Women's Chorus."

When making selections for concerts, conductors try to present programs that are interesting for the singers and for the listeners as well, Weber said. In this case, most of the repertoire is sacred because of the venue.

Selected pieces include Byrd's Sacerdotes Domini, Sing Joyfully; Robert Schumann's Two Quartets from Spanisches Liederspiel, Op. 74; Maurice Ravel's Trois Chansons; Moses Hogan's We Shall Walk Though the Valley in Peace and Britten's Missa Brevis in D Major.

Weber said this concert is special because Richard Robbins, the school's graduate conducting assistant, will conduct the Concert Chorale as part of the requirements for his master's degree.

Admission is free for Wednesday's performance, which begins at 7:30 p.m. at 5501 Main St. For more information, call (713) 528-0527.
 

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