Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir 79th Annual Spring Tour and Home Concert

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The 79th Annual Spring Tour of the Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir will be from Thursday, March 19 through Sunday, March 22, concluding with a Home Concert Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 3 p.m.

ANNVILLE, PA (02/26/2015)(readMedia)-- The 79th Annual Spring Tour of the Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir will be from Thursday, March 19 through Sunday, March 22, concluding with a Home Concert Sunday, March 29, 2015 at 3 p.m. in the Miller Chapel. There is no admission charge, although a free-will offering may be collected in support of the host churches' music ministry.

This year's program is titled Spell of Creation, which is based on a poem by British poet, Kathleen Jessie Raine, CBE (1908–2003). Two lines from the poem have affected repertoire choices: And from the heart there flows a song / And in the song there sings a word. As does the following couplet: Within the ring there lies an O / Within the O there looks an eye. Vladimir Ussachevsky, who was the subject of director Mark Mecham's doctoral dissertation in the early 1980s, set the entire poem to music in his multimedia oratorio, Creation.

The program opens with Ralph Vaughan Williams's setting of Psalm 47, O Clap Your Hands for organ and mixed choir. Junior Kevin Gane '16 will be at the organ. Croce's late Renaissance double-choir setting of Psalm 81, Buccinate in neomenia tuba (Blow up the trumpet in the new moon) follows. Next, is the Renaissance motet, O Vos Omnes (Lamentations of Jeremiah 1:12) set by the Spanish mystic, Victoria.

Holdovers from Christmas at The Valley will include a 1990 setting of Bogoróditse Djévo (Rejoice, O Virgin) by contemporary Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt, an arrangement of Praetorius's Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming by Jan Sandström, a Swedish composer, and Ola Gjeilo's masterful setting of O Magnum Mysterium (Serenity), which is scored for choir, cello, and violin. Kayla Jones '17 and Adam White '17 will play the stringed instruments.

Pivotal selections will be a short Missa Brevis made up of two mass movements also composed by the Norwegian Ola Gjeilo: his Kyrie (The Spheres) composed in 2010, and his setting of Sanctus (London), which was composed in 2008. This portion of program concludes with the magnificent 1937 setting of O Sacrum Convivium! (O sacred banquet!), by Olivier Messiaen, the 20th-century French composer.

For the past several years the LVC Concert Choir has programmed at least one great traditional American hymn. This year, it is Lowell Mason's setting of Isaac Watts's text When I Survey the Wondrous Cross in an arrangement by Lowell Mason. Kara Hess '17 will accompany the hymn at the organ.

Another setting of O Vos Omnes follows, this one by the 20th-century Argentinian master, Alberto Ginastera, which he composed in 1947. Two contemporary anthems follow: Dan Forrest's setting of Ruth 1:16-17, Entreat Me Not to Leave You, and Daniel Gawthrop's Sing Me to Heaven, which sets a poem by his wife, Jane Griner.

The program concludes with Jake Runestad's whimsical Nyon, Nyon, 2012, William Dawson's setting of the traditional Spiritual, Soon Ah Will Be Done , and the Concert Choir's traditional benediction, The Lord Bless You and Keep You by Peter Lutkin. The 20-voice select LVC Chamber Choir will also contribute at least one selection at every concert.

Mark Mecham, Carmean Professor of Music, directs the 75-voice Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir.

Tour sites:

Thursday, March 19, 2015, 7 p.m.

St. Thomas Church

536 North Main Street

Bernville, Pa. 19506

No admission charge: free will offering to benefit the music ministry

[Brian Luckenbill '88; home church of Kirstin Luckenbill '16]

Friday, March 20, 2015, 7 p.m.

Carlisle United Methodist Church

The Rev. Dr. Gerald D. '44, H'65 & Eleanor L. Hershey Kauffman Memorial Concert

45 South West Street

Carlisle, Pa. 17013

No admission charge

[Fred Kauffman, host]

Saturday, March 21, 2015, 7 p.m.

Reformation Lutheran Church

102 West Rose Tree Road

Media, Pa. 19063

No admission charge: free will offering to benefit the music ministry

[Elizabeth Eynon Hazlett '08, host; home church of Kevin Gane '16]

Sunday, March 22, 2015, 3 p.m. [The one program on tour that is at 3 p.m., not 7 p.m.]

Trinity United Church of Christ

2340 State Street

East Petersburg, Pa. 17520

No admission charge: free will offering to benefit the music ministry

[Michael Slechta '91, '04, host]

Home Concert: Sunday, March 29, 2015, 3 p.m., Miller Chapel, Lebanon Valley College campus.

Special performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony (The Choral Symphony) with the Hershey Symphony Orchestra, Sandra Dackow, musical director, with the Dickinson College Choir, and the Hershey Symphony Festival Chorus

Friday, April 17, 2015, 8 p.m. at the Hershey Theater

http://www.hersheysymphony.org/2014-2015-season/

About the LVC Concert Choir

The Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir has toured each year, primarily in the Northeast, since 1936. In addition, the choir has been heard on more than 30 NBC national radio broadcasts including National Radio Pulpit and Great Choirs in America. The choir has performed with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and holds a standing invitation to appear at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., and the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York City. Other non-tour appearances have included the Lighting of the National Christmas Tree, the Festival of Lights at the Washington, D.C. Temple Visitor's Center, performing at the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, and appearances before the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association and the Music Educators National Conference Eastern Division Convention in Washington, D.C. The choir has toured internationally to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1973), Great Britain (1999), Italy (2001), Central Europe: the Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary (2007), and Scandinavia: Norway and Denmark (May 2011).

About Mark Mecham

Mark 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.

Professor Mecham graduated from the University of Utah with degrees in music education and choral conducting. He completed his doctorate in musical arts in Choral Music at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Mecham has taught at Southern Utah University, the University of Texas at Tyler, and the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. Active in the American Choral Directors Association, he was Utah State President, 1989–90, and president-elect in North Dakota, 1978–80, and served as the repertoire and standards chair for College and University Choirs, 1999–2001 for ACDAPA. He has conducted, adjudicated, and given choral clinics in 21 states, Washington, D.C., Austria, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Italy, Hungary, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, and Norway.