More than 1,000 students spent the first week of school auditioning for 450 spots available in Brigham Young University’s top choirs. After only three weeks of rehearsal, those choirs will perform during the annual Choral Showcase Thursday and Friday, Sept. 25-26, at 7:30 p.m. in the de Jong Concert Hall, Harris Fine Arts Center.
Tickets can be purchased for $6 at the Fine Arts Ticket Office, by calling (801) 422-4322 or by visiting byuarts.com.
The showcase will feature the BYU Singers, conducted by Ronald Staheli; the Concert Choir and Men’s Chorus, conducted by Rosalind Hall; and the Women’s Chorus, conducted by Jean Applonie
“This concert is a huge leap of faith because we just started rehearsing,” Hall said. “This concert is so electric because it is the first time for many students to be on stage and they want to do their very best.
“The concert provides an enormous variety because each choir presents three contrasting pieces of the year’s repertoire,” Staheli said. “Moving from one mood to another, the choirs will provide an unusual variety from spirituals to folk songs.”
The performance will culminate in all four choirs singing “Pilgrim’s Song,” written by BYU alumnus Ryan Murphy. This piece presents a message of moving forward and withstanding challenges in the pilgrimage of life. This performance will be the first combined auditioned choir concert after the summer break.
“Most of us have gone the entire summer without any experiences akin to a choral performance,” said Jacob Meldrum from the BYU Singers. “This concert is an opportunity for us and for the audience to come together and remember what it is like to be edified by each other after a long separation.”
Members of BYU choirs not only perform, but also inspire with music performed with spiritual undertones.
“When the music of great composers, living and dead, is combined with the majesty of our Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost, souls are moved, courses are corrected and lives are changed,” said Benjamin Gardner from BYU Singers. “We create music in tandem with Heaven, and the Lord himself said that He delights in the songs of the heart—and so do we.”
For more information, contact the School of Music at (801) 422-8903, or visit choirs.byu.edu.
Writer: Angela Fischer
