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Student performers will be the focus of the upcoming Lafayette College Choirs Spring Concerts, April 29 at 7 p.m. and April 30 at 8 p.m. in the Williams Center for the Arts.
A brown bag presentation will be held April 21 at 12 p.m. in room 123. Admission is free for both engagements.
According to Nina Gilbert, director of choral activities, this season’s concert doesn’t have a unified musical theme, but instead has a number of contrasting works that shine the spotlight on the performers.
“We have twelve seniors in choir this semester, and I invited them to request their favorite pieces from their years in the Lafayette Concert Choir,” she says.
One such request was for the spiritual “Ride the Chariot” from chemistry major Greg Lapp ’06 (Lancaster, Pa.), who will also be conducting the piece. Lapp has been taking conducting lessons this semester and was the past music director of the Chorduroys (men’s a cappella group). Three of Johannes Brahms’ “Lovesong Waltzes” will be performed by request of history and anthropology & sociology major Alisandra Carnevale ’06 (Princeton, N.J.).
There will be other works that connect choir members to their experience over the years, such as The Madrigal Singers performing “Salve Regina” by Diogo Dias Melgas. The choir discovered this piece during its January Interim trip to Spain and Portugal.
Choir members and Gilbert have also collaborated on a new arrangement of the folk song “Mama Don’t ‘Low.” Each verse names a different musical activity – a barbershop quartet, guitar, band instruments, and hip-hop – which are then performed along with the choir.
“Tom Struck [’06 (Mount Laurel, N.J.)] has written an original rap that fits into the choir’s singing,” says Gilbert. “We’re not aware of anyone ever having written a piece for choir, barbershop chorus, band instruments, guitar, and rapper before.”
Concert Choir and the Madrigal Singers perform a major concert at the end of each semester, plus hold smaller appearances throughout the year.