Group Giving Concert Tuesday
The Department of Music at Washington and Lee invites area residents to hear the University Singers, under the direction of Shane M. Lynch, in a concert on Tuesday, March 3, at 8 p.m. in the Wilson Concert Hall.
The University Singers, recognized as one of the finest collegiate a cappella choirs in the region, are an internationally competitive touring choir who are returning from a performance tour of Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
Tickets are free, but required. Call the Lenfest Center box office at (540) 458-8000 to reserve tickets.
The University Singers perform a wide variety of literature at major venues across the globe while serving as artistic ambassadors for the university in concert series, music festivals, conventions and University outreach events. The tour program will feature a variety of works, from choral classics by Brahms and Stanford to modern classics by noted German composers Michael Ostrzyga and Georg Grün. Traditional American folksongs and other audience favorites will round out the evening.
The tour to southern Florida was made possible through past performances by the University Singers in the Southern United States, including northern Florida in 2024. Coordinated by former Choral Conducting Mentorship Program member Michael Colavita ‘18, who is pursuing his doctorate in choral conducting at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, the trip represented an opportunity to engage with choral singers of a wide variety of ages, from middle-schoolers to professional.
Three themed sets that cover the choral spectrum will be presented, with each one taking a different avenue of importance explored during the tour. The first set, “Modern Latin Masterpieces,” follows the continued evolution of the Latin motet by composers over the past century. The set is anchored by the compositions by the two modern German masters. “Grün’s Veni” is a example of modern rhythmic and harmonic language being put together in completely new way for this historic text of the “Golden Sequence.” Ostrzyga’s “Iuppiter” is a competition work of immense complexity, designed to give choirs a chance to highlight their skill at the highest level of performance.
The second set of the program, “Musings on the Depth and Beauty of Night,” focuses on compositions that ponder the various human ideas regarding the infinite stretch of dusk, dawn, and what is in between. Featuring works by Brahms, Clausen, Whitacre and Christiansen, each piece looks at a different aspect of night, from the fear of the unknown through the beauty of the evening to the faith it takes to walk through the darkness.
Finally, the University Singers will close the concert with audience favorites, including Moses Hogan’s “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel?” before finally ending with W&L’s traditional “Shenandoah” by James Erb.
