KSC Chamber Singers and Concert Choir Perform Holiday Music
KEENE, N.H. 11/13/01 - Kicking off the Christmas/Hanukkah season, the Keene State College Chamber Singers and Concert Choir, conducted by Dr. Carroll Lehman, will perform a holiday program on Friday, Nov. 30.
KSC faculty member George Loring, piano and organ, and student pianist Ashley Rand will accompany the singers as they perform works by Mendelssohn, Rutter, Dvorak, Hairston, and Pasatieri. The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Alumni Recital Hall of the Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond. Tickets are $7 for the general public and $5 for KSC students, senior citizens, and youth 17 and under. Call the box office at 603-358-2168.
The program, entitled “Emotions of the Holidays: Peace Love, and Joy,” is divided in three sections based on the music’s theme. The concert opens with songs of love including Felix Mendelssohn’s “See What Love Had The Father” and “Bang the Drum Loudly” by Thomas Pasatieri.
Student Jung Jin Choi will conduct four songs of peace such as J. S. Bach’s “Dona Nobis Pacem (from b minor Mass), the Jewish folk tune “Ya ba bom” and John Rutter’s “A Gaelic Blessing.”
Two other works by Bach “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” and “With Glad Hearts We Praise Thee” are among the six songs of joy. Other joyous songs include “This Day” by Antonin Dvorak and Knut Nystedt’s “Cry Out and Shout.”
The concert concludes with the spiritual “I Can Tell the World,” arranged by Jester Hairston and Theron Kirk’s “Sing for Joy.”
The Chamber Singers are a select group of 32 auditioned singers. The Concert Choir is a preparatory choir training singers who have had less experience in choral betterment technique.
Dr. Lehman, a member of the Keene State faculty since 1978, also is conductor and music director of the Monadnock Chorus and Orchestra in Peterborough. In 1984, Lehman formed the Oratorio Society, which has performed many major choral masterworks with orchestra including the Verdi, Mozart, and Brahms requiems and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.
