Community Invited to Participate in Weekend of Choral Music

Wooster faculty and students join composer Alice Parker and Cantate Singers for three events

Wooster, Ohio, Nov. 4 - The Cantate Singers, in collaboration with The College of Wooster, will give community members the opportunity to experience and interact with one of America’s most cherished choral composers. Alice Parker, well known for her arrangements with the Robert Shaw Chorale, will be in Wooster to present a workshop and community sing and will direct the Cantate Singers in a performance of her own composition, Melodious Accord.

All members of the Wooster community are invited to a workshop on Fri., Nov.13, at 4:15 p.m. in the Gault Recital Hall, Scheide Music Center, 525 E. University St.

“Alice Parker will talk about her approaches to choral conducting and song leading, including her belief that everyone knows how to sing and that improvised accompaniments can be as profound and as moving as formal compositions,” says William Mateer, music director of the Cantate Singers.  “And then skeptics can actually see that this is true at a community sing that Alice will lead on Saturday evening, when ordinary people will discover harmonies and vocal accompaniments on the spot, using their ears, rather than their eyes.”

Community members are invited to the sing, which will take place Sat., Nov. 14, at 7:00 p.m. at Oak Grove Mennonite Church, 7843 Smucker Road, Smithville. 

The weekend’s activities will conclude with a performance of Parker’s Melodious Accord by the Cantate Singers, for which she will serve as guest conductor on Sun., Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mary Catholic Church in Wooster. The performance will include vocal solos by Wooster music majors Claire Lewis and Andrew Levan. No tickets are necessary. A free-will collection will be made at the conclusion of the concert.

Melodious Accord cantata is based upon the shape-note hymnal Genuine Church Music, which first appeared in 1832 and was published by Joseph Funk, a Mennonite farmer living in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Parker, who is particularly noted for the musical integrity of her compositions and her sensitivity to the roots from which folk music originates, arranged the historic tunes for chorus and the unique accompaniment of harp and brass quartet.

The Cantate Singers will also perform an original work by chorus member Jeff Araluce, a folk hymn arrangement by Virgil Thomson, and the Vaughan Williams setting of the Old Hundredth Psalm Tune.  Instrumental selections will be presented by harpist Deborah Holzworth; violinist Thomas Wood, professor of music at the college; and emeritus professor Brian Dykstra, piano.

For more information about the weekend’s events, contact William Mateer at 330-262-8196.