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KSC Chamber Singers and Concert Choir Honor Mozart

KEENE, N.H. 3/22/06 - The Keene State College Chamber Singers and Concert Choir will perform on Sunday, April 9, at 3:00 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 age 17 or younger. Call the box office at 603-358-2168.

Music faculty member Diane Cushing will conduct the KSC Concert Choir, a group of 48 male and female singers. The Concert Choir will perform the premiere of KSC faculty member Timothy Rogers’ choral piece Psalms and Dances at War’s End. They will also sing Viajé and Dos Palabras by Keene State Professor of Music José Lezcano, with Lezcano accompanying on guitar. In honor of the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth, the choir will also perform Lacrymosa from The Requiem and Giovanni Lieti from The Marriage of Figaro.

In keeping with the Mozart celebration theme, Dr. Carroll Lehman, professor of music, will conduct the KSC Chamber Singers, a select group of 14 singers, in performing two of Mozart’s most lauded works. The first is the familiar Regina Coeli, composed in 1779. The other work, Missa Brevis in Bb (KV 275), written in 1777, is one of his numerous short masses written for his church in Salzburg. “This work is a gem,” Lehman says, “Very typical of his writing; both lyrical and dramatic.” All of the members of the Chamber Singers will sing one or more of the solos in these pieces. Professor George Loring will accompany on the piano.

Lehman, a member of the Keene State faculty since 1978, also is the conductor and music director of the Monadnock Chorus in Peterborough. Under his direction, the chorus has toured Italy, Austria, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Scandinavia. He has conducted the New Hampshire Friendship Chorus and Orchestra on tours of Russia, Latvia, Estonia, and South Africa. Lehman also formed the KSC Oratorio Society, which has performed many major choral masterworks with orchestra.

Cushing, who teaches voice at Keene State, is the founder and director of the Greater Gardner Youth Choir and the Mount Wachusett Community Choir, which toured Italy in the spring. Cushing, a soprano, also has been a featured soloist with the Monadnock Chorus, the Master Works Chorale of Boston, Boston Baroque, and many other groups. She was also the Music Director of the recent Keene State production of Urinetown.

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