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POWELL, Wyo. - The Northwest Master Chorale and Northwest College Choir perform in a 7:30 p.m. shared concert Thursday, April 10, in the Nelson Performing Arts Center Auditorium on the Northwest College Campus.
“We’re excited to share an evening of music with the NWC Choir,” said Master Chorale director Anissa Bree. “The audience can expect a cornucopia of musical entertainment.”
The Master Chorale opens the concert with “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel,” “Et in Terra Pax” and two Sherri Porterfield songs known for their meter and tempo changes. Piano accompaniment is provided by Karen Bree.
Highlights of the evening are provided by Rebecca Voss, who adds flute obligato to Brahms’ “In Stiller Nacht,” and Cody Middle School eighth grader Skylah Bree, who adds her voice to “Aya Ngena,” a song in the Zulu language featuring small percussion instruments to enhance its traditional African sound.
Bree invites anyone interested in joining the Master Chorale to contact her at 307-899-2003. The group begins rehearsals again in September for a December concert.
Under the direction of Jan Kliewer, the NWC College Choir performs a sampling of music reflecting the choral genre in America. NWC students Forest Holso of Sundance, Wyo., and Alaina Williams of Powell will conduct the choir on two compositions.
Things get started with the traditional spiritual “Nothin’ Gonna Stumble My Feet” and “Carpenters of God,” a recent composition by Vijay Singh written in the same tenor as an American spiritual. In the Aaron Copeland folk song “Stomp Your Foot,” the piano accompaniment acts the part of the fiddle.
The choir turns to the art song genre for Sam Barber’s arrangement of James Agee’s poem “Sure on this Shining Night,” which Kliewer describes as “one of the most evocative and well-known American songs.” Kliewer will direct the group in “Sunset to Sunrise,” a hymn written by his father Jonah Kliewer, using the night as a metaphor of spiritual darkness.
The women of the choir perform “Heart, We Will Forget Him,” composed by James Mulholland and based on Emily Dickinson’s poem of the same name; Katie Crosby of Thermopolis is featured on a French horn solo. The men close the concert with their rendition of a fun piece titled “Manly Men.”
Admission to the concert is free.