UCR Chamber Singers Spring Into
Concert
By Ferda Mehmet, student intern of CHASS College Computing
 The
UCR Chamber Singers, conducted by Dr.
Ruth Charloff, will present their spring choral
concert on April 26th at the St. Andrew’s
Newman Center Chapel. The hour-long concert will
consist of twenty students from the Music 163 class
who perform twice a year as a group. The special
guest of this evening concert, renowned harpist
Mary Dropkin, will accompany the Chamber Singers
in Cantique de Jean Racine by Fauré and in
Trois Illuminations, a setting of three poems by
Rimbaud composed by Chairman of the Music Department
Byron Adams, and orchestrated for chorus and harp.
Featured soloists in Trois Illuminations--all members
of the UCR Chamber Singers--will be Bonnie Gregory,
Marcela Pan, Paul Michael Atienza, and Jacob Warmerdam.
The French portion of the program also includes
three short songs from the French Renaissance, known
as chansons, written by three of the best-known
composers of the genre -- Lassus, Josquin, and Passereau.
The three songs are a love song, a song about a
man’s regret upon leaving his beloved, and
a comical song portraying two women discussing their
marriages and infidelities.
Etz chayim, the concert’s opening number, is a prayer for peace. Sung in Hebrew, the title means “tree of life” and is excerpted from Ernest Bloch’s Sacred Service. The largest piece on the program will be the Mass in G by Franz Schubert, accompanied by a quartet of string players from the UCR Orchestra and by organist Marc Longlois. The Mass features soprano Mary Estrada, tenor Paul Michael Atienza, and bass Monte Fleming. People from the community, both on and off campus, are welcome
to attend the concert. Charloff says, “It is important to
have such a choral concert because there is much to learn about
making music with others, listening to others, and the voice is
the most valuable tool for all of this.” General admission
is $8 and $5 for students, seniors, and children. |