Kenyon College Chamber Singers Spring Tour Concert

     The Kenyon College Chamber Singers, consisting of fifty-four undergraduates chosen by competitive audition, is Kenyon's premier touring ensemble.  The group is noted for its versatility of vocal style and broad repertoire.  The New York Concert Review applauded the artistry of the ensemble, stating “the young members of the Chamber Singers...retain the proper lightness to navigate the translucent textures of Sweelinck’s Cantate Domino and Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus...focused intently on the conductor, the singers kept their audience hanging on every word.”

            The Chamber Singers will again present an eclectic mix of a cappella choral repertoire on their 2012 Spring Tour.  A centerpiece to the program will be Johann Sebastian Bach’s double-choir motet Singet dem Herr ein neues Lied, with numerous other sacred compositions by Knut Nystedt, Judith Shatin, Gyorgy Orban, Jacob Handl, and Niels La Cour. The ensemble is noted for its regular inclusion of music from South Africa, which this year includes Akhala Amaqhude Amabili (Two Roosters Crowing), arranged by Mzilikazi Khumalo.  Other pieces on the program include Jonathan Dove’s In Beauty May I Walk, Hall Johnson’s I Couldn’t Hear Nobody Pray, Moses Hogan’s Battle of Jericho, and a musical setting by Benjamin Locke of Emily Dickinson’s poem Till the End.

     The members of Chamber Singers come from twenty states and the country of Estonia.  Only thirteen of the singers have declared music as their academic major, with the rest having chosen fields such as mathematics, religion, studio art, biology, drama, psychology, philosophy, and English, to name but a few.  All the singers value music as an integral part of a liberal-arts education and take great pride in reaching for the highest musical standards in performance.

    Kenyon College is Ohio's oldest private college and has held a reputation for excellence for more than one hundred eighty years.  It boasts a remarkably dedicated faculty, a carefully planned liberal arts curriculum, a highly capable student body, and alumni who have contributed significantly in all walks of life.