JOHNSON CITY – A “Choral Collage” of musical styles, from classical to contemporary, will be featured in the annual fall choral concert presented by the East Tennessee State University Department of Music.
This annual debut concert for the department’s student vocal ensembles will be held Sunday, Oct. 18, at 3 p.m. at Munsey Memorial United Methodist Church, 201 E. Market St.
The concert features the ETSU Chorale, East Tennessee Belles, BucsWorth Men’s Choir and Greyscale, performing under the direction of Drs. Matthew Potterton and Alan Stevens, director and associate director, respectively, of choral activities in the Department of Music.
Two of these ensembles have recently received state and national honors. The BucsWorth Men’s Choir is one of 14 choirs selected from throughout the United States to sing at the Intercollegiate Men’s Chorus National Seminar, which will be held at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in March 2016. Also, the ETSU Chorale is one of two university choirs chosen to perform at the Tennessee Music Education State Conference in Nashville in April 2016.
“Both events are huge honors for our choirs,” Potterton said, noting that both selections were made based on recordings of the ensembles from the last two years, which were judged blindly by professionals in the choral field. “Through this process, our recordings were selected as being outstanding, and therefore this allows us this opportunity to perform for these huge events. We are well on our way to making ETSU one of the premiere choral schools in the United States.”
In “Choral Collage,” the four ETSU ensembles, performing individually and in combinations, will present a program of classical works by Hans Leo Hassler, Claudio Monteverdi, Francis Poulenc and others; spirituals; traditional folk songs from America and Ireland; pop tunes by such artists as The Beach Boys and The Eurythmics; and works by current composers Eric Whitacre, Daniel J. Hall and others.
The concert is free and open to the public. A donation of $10 is suggested.
For more information, call the ETSU Department of Music at 423-439-4276. For disability accommodations, call the ETSU Office of Disability Services at 423-439-8346.