Three area choirs to debut at Carnegie Hall Feb. 17
NEW YORK, NY – On the first concert of its 2019 season, MidAmerica Productions, as part of its 36th annual concert season, will present the Carnegie Hall debuts of three choirs from Kansas. The concert occurs at 2 p.m. Feb. 17.
Dr. Bradley Vogel, Director of Choral Activities at Tabor College in Hillsboro, will lead an ensemble of more than 100 voices, including his own Tabor College Concert Choir, along with members of the WHS Crusader Choir from Wellington and the Berean Singers from Elbing, in the Sunrise Mass by contemporary composer Ola Gjeilo. The New England Symphonic Ensemble will serve as the orchestra for the performance.
“Both Jessica Coldwell, Director of the WHS Crusader Choir, and Sara Morris, Director of the Berean Singers, studied and sang with me at Tabor College,” Vogel said, “so our trip to Carnegie Hall will also serve as an unofficial reunion of sorts.”
“The Berean Singers are excited to perform for the first time in the Big Apple at Carnegie Hall. We’re working hard to do justice to Ola Gjeilo’s inspiring music, and to do Kansas proud. Thank you to the students, parents, and Berean community for making this opportunity possible,” Morris said.
“We have 30 students representing Wellington, Kansas at this concert,” Coldwell said. “We are so grateful to our entire community for the support, and I am also truly grateful for the parents, students, and community for believing in the choir. Thank you, Wellington!”
Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass utilizes the text of the "Ordinary of the Mass" but superimposes a series of subtitles to define the composer’s vision of each movement. Thus, the Kyrie is associated with “The Spheres,” with an ethereal concept of space; the Gloria with “Sunrise;” the Credo with the bustle of “The City;” and the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, combined into one movement, with “Identity” and “The Ground,” with a recapitulation and resolution of earlier themes.
As a public “thank you” to the community for its support of the New York concert trip, Vogel will lead a free performance on Sunday, March 10 at 7 p.m., in the Shari Flaming Center for the Arts on the Tabor College campus. All three participating choirs will reprise their Carnegie Hall program with a professional orchestra, which also will perform Barber’s "Adagio for Strings."