Wayland Baptist University’s International Choir and Wayland Singers Chorus celebrate the blossoming season Thursday, April 27, as the School of Creative Arts presents Awakening the Spring, a choral concert under the direction of Dr. Sarah Herrington.
Featuring Scripture, poetry, Eastern European synagogue sounds, and ancient salutations set to music, as well as traditional spirituals and other energetic and challenging works, the free concert takes place at 7:30 p.m. in Harral Memorial Auditorium on Wayland’s Plainview campus. The choral groups are accompanied by Dr. Richard Fountain, Associate Dean of the School of Creative Arts and Professor of Piano.
“We invite our community to join us for Awakening the Spring,” said Herrington, Director of Choral Studies. “From opening with Jubilate Deo, which comes from Psalm 65, to closing with Nyon Nyon, an exploration of the effects that can be produced with the human voice, these works celebrate God’s beauty through choral excellence.”
The concert also celebrates the establishment of the Jeannine Greene Friends of the Arts Music Scholarship. A 1954 Wayland graduate, Greene has mentored hundreds of young students during 65 years as a piano instructor.
“As a teacher, church pianist, community arts advocate, and founding member of Wayland’s Friends of Music, Ms. Greene has exemplified Psalm 150 through her life work,” Herrington said.
After opening with Jubilate Deo, Wayland Singers will perform Muusika, an Estonian tone poem that is a meditation on the mystery and wonder of music, before encouraging with Hold On, a traditional spiritual. The first section finishes with No Time, a collection of “traditional camp meeting songs” arranged for festival choir presentation.
International Choir opens the next section with Sim Shalom, which has a melody that invokes the strains of traditional Eastern European synagogue music, and follows with Ubi Caritas, Maurice Durufle’s enduring work from Four Motets on Gregorian Themes.
Senior Deborah Disalvo is the featured soloist on Oseh Shalom, and Dr. Brian Kuhnert, Professor and Director of Vocal Studies, is the soloist on Dominus Vobiscum, a song of blessing speaking to the depths of God in the hearts of men. Other pieces to be performed by International Choir include Ain’-A That Good News, a traditional spiritual; Set Me As A Seal, a love poem featuring soaring vocal lines, dynamic contrasts and sweeping accompaniment; and Three Madrigals, a three-movement work with text from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Measure For Measure, and Much Ado About Nothing.
