Community Chorus in rehearsal

The Middlebury College Community Chorus welcomes faculty, staff, and students to join us as we prepare for our annual Thanksgiving concerts (Nov. 17-18) with a program entitled A Song Arising. Regular rehearsals begin September 11 in Mead Chapel, and then continue on Sundays and Tuesdays, 7-8:30pm throughout the fall. (Note: rehearsal on 9/18 will be in Mahaney Ctr for the Arts 221).

Community Chorus in rehearsal
Community Chorus in rehearsal

As always, we welcome community neighbors and family members (high school age and up) to join us! Participants should plan to attend at least one rehearsal each week. We welcome all singers without audition who can follow a musical score. Our members travel from throughout the region to participate in this 150-year-old community tradition.

For additional information, check on the web at go.middlebury.edu/communitychorus or contact director Jeff Rehbach at 989-7355.

Please see below a listing of selections for this fall. We look forward to making music together as we explore this repertoire! Join us!

The power of music in our lives

  • Earth Song by Frank Ticheli, who writes, “The scorched earth cries out in vain, but music and singing have been my refuge.”
  • The Song Arising by Joseph Martin with his words, “Where there is sadness, where there is strife, let me sing harmony.”
  • Alway Something Sings by Dan Forrest with words by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “I hear a skyborn music still: it sounds from all things old, it sounds from all things young.”
  • Vida Atrevida, a dramatic new 2018 setting of Chilean songwriter and activist Violeta Parra’s words, arranged by Middlebury’s Sam Guarnaccia: “Thank you, life, for giving me so much. You gave me laughter and you gave me tears. The two elements that make up my song, and your song, and everyone’s song, which is my very song.”

The world around us

  • Muusika by Estonian composer Pärt Uusberg: “Somewhere the original harmony must exist, hidden somewhere in the vast wilds…”
  • The Peace of Wild Things by Jake Runestad, a 2014 award-winning composition based on Wendell Berry’s poem.
  • I Dream a World by Connor Koppin, in a new setting of the text by Langston Hughes.

Reverently

  • Kyrie eleisonWolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s first choral work, scored for choir & string quartet.
  • Communio/Lux aeterna: the final movement from Mozart‘s powerful Requiem.
  • Illumination, a prayerful Latin text originating from 17th century Ireland, sensitively set by composer Michael McGlynn, arranger for the Celtic ensemble Anúna.

Celebration & Thanksgiving

  • O Be Joyful (Psalm 100) by British composer John Rutter
  • Hymn for America by Minnesota composer Stephen Paulus (a Thanksgiving favorite of the chorus)
  • How Can I Keep from Singing by longtime Vermont resident Gwyneth Walker
  • I Will Sing by African American singer-composer Rosephanye Powell in a toe-tapping gospel style, “When freedom rings, I will sing of the joy, of the peace, of the love that fills my heart.”

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