Join Portland State’s Music Department this Thursday for the final installment of winter term’s Performance Attendance Recital concert series. This week’s performance will be PSU’s own Chamber Choir.
Join Portland State’s Music Department this Thursday for the final installment of winter term’s Performance Attendance Recital concert series. This week’s performance will be PSU’s own Chamber Choir.
“If you attend Thursday, you are going to hear a wide variety of music in a short period of time,” said Ethan Sperry, director of choral activities. ”We’ve got some really beautiful sacred music from Germany and Lavia, a municipality of Finland. We’ve even got a pop song!”
The choir will be performing five pieces dramatically ranging in style, from Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” to the “Ballad of Y2K” by Bonnie Miksch, head of the university’s composition program.
“It’s about all the people who really thought the world was going to come to an end Jan. 1, 2000, and as a result were hoarding food and guns because they thought western civilization was going to break down,” Sperry said. “It’s a very difficult piece, but it’s also a very humorous piece. It’s pretty wild.”
The Thursday performance is both a preview of and preparation for an extremely important concert the choir has the following day.
“On Friday, March 16, we have this group Kammerchor Stuttgart coming to Portland,” Sperry said. “They are a professional choir from Germany, and they are generally considered one of the best choirs in the world.”
This concert is important to the choir for a number of reasons, explained Katie Regan, senior in the Music Education Program and president of the Chamber Choir.
“This concert is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for anyone living in Portland,” Regan said. “Kammerchor Stuttgart is one of the top choirs in the world.”
“It’s a unique group, and it’s only the second time they have been in the United States, and we were lucky enough to land one of the concerts on their tour,” Sperry said.
Regan added that “it’s really cool to see PSU students collaborating with this incredible, world-renowned choir.”
“It’s going to be fantastic music, no matter what you’re into,” Regan said. “The music we are singing is compelling, both emotionally and artistically.”
On Friday night, each choir will be performing four to five individual songs in conjunction with two songs they will perform together. The combined 68 singers will be performing a piece by Johannes Brahms and one by Anton Bruckner.
“One of the pieces that the German choir is singing on Friday is a piece by Ligeti on the soundtrack to the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey,” Sperry said. “It’s one of the hardest pieces that has been written for choir: It’s ridiculously difficult. You will feel like you’re in outer space.”
All of the proceeds from Friday’s show will be used to help the Chamber Choir represent PSU in St. Petersburg, Russia, this June. “If the concert sells out, we will have $10,000 to help get us there,” Regan said excitedly.
Regan thinks that attendees will be surprised by how moved they are by the music.
“We live in an age where there is unlimited access to all kinds of music, and so we listen to whatever is popular and happening now. This is a combination of music that’s happening now, as well music from the past,” she said. “It’s really important to expose yourself to all types of music, and this is a really great way to introduce yourself to choral music.”
