Download 79th Tour Press Release - Trinity UCC East Petersburg PA

Press Release Information: Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir 79th Annual Spring
Tour and Home Concert
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 on
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 entitled Spell of Creation, which is based on a poem by British
poet, Kathleen Jessie Raine, CBE (1908-2003). Two lines from the poem have effected
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 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 the 20th-century French composer, Olivier Messiaen.
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.
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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.
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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 Chairman 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 twenty-one states,
Washington, D.C., Austria, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Italy, Hungary, Australia,
New Zealand, Denmark and Norway.