Lebanon Valley College Chamber Choir to Host Reunion Concert

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Lebanon Valley College Chamber Choir

ANNVILLE, PA (04/15/2015)(readMedia)-- The Lebanon Valley College Chamber Choir will host a Reunion Concert Sunday, May 3 at 3 p.m. in the Miller Chapel. The performance is free and open to the public.

More than 150 alumni of the LVC Chamber Choir, 1991–2015, will return to campus for a reunion concert celebrating Clark and Edna Carmean Distinguished Professor of Music Dr. Mark Mecham's retirement from the LVC Department of Music. Dr. Michael Wojdylak, who directed the Chamber Choir during Mecham's fall 2003 sabbatical and spring 2004 semester directing the College's study abroad program in New Zealand, will also participate in the concert.

The program will begin with a set of six selections performed by this year's edition of the choir. These will be pieces selected from their April 28 Spring Concert. Next, the Alumni Choir will perform seven selections: Ecce quomodo moritur justus by Palestrina; Orlando di Lasso's Italian madrigal, Tutto lo di; a Greek anthem, Enite ton Kyrion by Frank Desby; Ka Waiata Ki a Maria by New Zealand composer Richard Puanaki; a William Billing's anthem, Is Any Afflicted; a tune from the Sacred Harp tradition, Soar Away, by A. Marcus Cagle; and an arrangement of That Lonesome Road by James Taylor. The final selection, performed by the 150+ alumni in attendance and their singing significant others, will be Peter Lutkin's The Lord Bless You and Keep You.

Approximately an hour in length, the program should conclude by 4 p.m.

Founded by Mecham in 1991, the 20-voice Lebanon Valley College Chamber Choir is selected from the membership of the Concert Choir. The group usually rehearses without reference to the piano and ultimately performs without a conductor, so the members are chosen for their strong musicianship. The choir specializes in a'cappella choral chamber music from madrigals to vocal jazz. They meet twice a week for rehearsal and prepare a spring concert. In August 2000, they performed for the American Choral Directors Association of Pennsylvania (ACDAPA) Summer Conference at Penn State University.

Two hundred forty-six students have performed with the Chamber Choir during the past 24 years. Therefore, significantly more than half of the choir's alumni will be return from as far away as Tennessee, Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts to honor Mecham.

Mecham was chair of the Department of Music at Lebanon Valley College from 1990–2014. He was named the D. Clark and Edna Carmean Distinguished Professor of Music, and received the Thomas Rhys Vickroy Distinguished Teaching Award in 1998. As director of choral activities, he conducts the LVC Concert and Chamber choirs. In August 1992, he appeared as guest conductor of the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and from 1993–2002 served as the musical director of the Lebanon County Choral Society. At the May 2012 Commencement, the Lebanon Valley College Student Government honored Mecham as Educator of the Year. Retired from full-time teaching in December 2014, Mecham is finishing out the choral academic year with this Spring Tour and Home Concert.

Lebanon Valley College offers numerous public performances by students, faculty, and guests of the College throughout the semester, many of them free and open to the public. Visit www.lvc.edu/music/events.aspx for the list of spring recitals.