Visiting conductor leads DPU choral concert

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Jan Harrington (pictured) will lead Sunday's kick-off concert for DePauw University's choral ensembles. The performance begins at 3 p.m. in the Thompson Recital Hall and is free for the public.

GREENCASTLE -- DePauw University's choral ensembles begin their 2010-11 season with a Sunday concert by the DePauw Chamber Singers.

The ensemble will present a birthday concert in the style of a German Liederabend, a legendary century house gathering of friends and musicians who would get together to share music and song. The performance will begin at 3 p.m. Sunday in Thompson Recital Hall in the Green Center for the Performing Arts, and is free and open to all.

This Liederabend will honor birthday anniversaries of three great composers: Robert Schumann (200 years), Gustav Mahler (150) and Samuel Barber (100). In addition to traditional choral singing, the audience will also hear individual vocalists from the chorus in solo and ensemble singing.

Sunday's concert marks the first appearance of visiting conductor Jan Harrington with the choral ensembles at DePauw University.

Harrington joined the DePauw School of Music this year after a distinguished 33-year career at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he served as Chancellor's Professor and chair of the choral conducting department.

Harrington notes that Amanda Hopson (coordinator of keyboard studies, senior staff accompanist and part-time associate professor of music) contributed enormously as music collaborator as he prepared for the program, and calls her involvement essential to the concert's success.

"Amanda is a rare jewel without whom our work as a chorus would not have a chance to shine," Harrington said.

For more information about this concert and others at the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts, visit the DePauw University School of Music online at www.depauw.edu/music

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