Southeastern choirs join Northlake, River Parishes for performance April 17
Contact: Rene Abadie
Date: 4/3/12
HAMMOND – The Southeastern Louisiana University Choral Program will join with several regional choirs in a performance featuring Leonard Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms" at the Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts at 7:30 p.m. April 17.
Sponsored by the Department of Fine and Performing Arts, the performance will combine the talents of the Southeastern choirs - including the Northshore Chorale - with the Northlake Performing Arts Society (NPAS) Chorale and the Community Chorus of the River Parishes.
Southeastern Director of Choral Activities Alissa Mercurio Rowe said the 160-voice choir will be directed by Anthony Sears, a 1994 Southeastern graduate who currently teaches at Isidore Newman School in New Orleans. The performance will feature the chorus and orchestra, including two harps and six percussionists.
Founded in 1995 by Laura Lane, the NPAS Chorale performs a wide range of classical music from Brahms to Mozart and also both Broadway and contemporary music. The Community Chorus of the River Parishes is conducted by Southeastern graduate Brian Martinez.
The concert will open with the Southeastern Women's Chorale performing Gwyneth Walker's "Songs for Women's Voices," directed by Rowe and three student conductors: Kelly Todd of Houma, Catherine New of New Orleans, and Carly Fauntleroy of Robert.
The Southeastern Concert Choir – consisting of the leading female and male vocalists at the university – will perform a Ronald Staheli arrangement of "How Can I Keep from Singing." The piece will be conducted by student Alyssa Carranza of Lafayette. John Corigliano's masterpiece "Fern Hill" with text by Dylan Thomas will conclude the first half of the program.
The second half of the program includes two movements from Randall Thompson's "Frostiana" with orchestra and chorus. The program will culminate with Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms," a three-movement work of psalms sung in Hebrew.
"The boy solo in the second movement sparkles, while the men's section that follows terrifies the listener," Rowe said.
Tickets are available through the Columbia Theatre box office, 220 East Thomas Street, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and one hour before the performance. General admission tickets are $10; Southeastern alumni, faculty, staff and non-Southeastern students are $5. Southeastern students are admitted free with student identification. For more information, contact the Columbia Theatre box office at 985-543-4371.
