Concert Choir to Perform March 22

by Richard Veit

Baylor University's Concert Choir will present the first of its two spring concerts at
8 p.m. Monday, March 22, in Jones Concert Hall. The program, titled "Its Own Clear Reflection," will feature choral music ranging from the early 1600s to the mid-1990s. Charles Neufeld, lecturer in choral/vocal music, will conduct, accompanied by David Anderson.
Heinrich Schütz's setting of "Psalm 150" will open the concert. Dating from 1619, it comes from his collection known as Psalmen Davids (or "Psalms of David"). "Tenebrae factae sunt" (or "Darkness Covered the Earth"), a brief choral piece on the Crucifixion of Jesus composed by Michael Haydn, will follow.
The first half of the concert will conclude with John Tavener's setting of the William Blake poem, "The Lamb," Randall Thompson's "Alleluia" from 1940 and "Amen" by contemporary Polish composer Henryk Górecki.
After intermission, the Concert Choir will sing William Albright's "A Alleluia Super-Round," John Tavener's "Song for Athene" and Franz Biebl's "Ave Maria," which was recently popularized in a recording by the male choral ensemble Chanticleer.
Stephen Leek's "Ngana" (or "Shark") comes from his 1996 collection Songs of Passage. It describes a seascape at the northeastern tip of Australia. The Concert Choir will offer
"Dirait-on," from American composer Morten Lauridsen's Les Chanson des Roses, set to a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. Concluding the program will be Peter Knight's arrangement of "I'm a Train" by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood.
This concert is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.