The Central Kansas Community Chorale will present a salute to American music in its concert set for 7:30 p.m. on April 11, at First United Methodist Church, Forest and Stone. Admission fee will be $5 at the door.
Choral singers from the central Kansas area have joined Barton Community College music students to form this non-denominational mixed chorus.
Spring of 2011 marks the fifth season for the Chorale, which is sponsored by the college and conducted by Barton’s Director of Choral Activities Vern Fryberger. The Chorale performs a pre-Easter concert every other year, alternating with the production of Barton’s spring musical.
As a salute to American music, the concert will open with “An American Mass” performed with Barton’s Community Orchestra and with Barton Vocal Music Instructor Glenna Gaunt as vocal soloist; followed by “Anthem” from the musical “Chess”; George Gershwin’s “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”; “Zion’s Walls” by Aaron Copland; and Kansas’ state song, “Home on the Range,” in an adapted version from the traditional arrangement of the song.
The concert will conclude with a patriotic presentation of eight different American flags as the Chorale performs “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” accompanied by piano, a Revolutionary War drum played by Kurtis Koch, and herald trumpets played by J.B. Webster and Marc Webster. Pianists for the Chorale are Barton Keyboard Instructor Karole Erikson, Barton’s Instrumental Music Director Steven Lueth; and Jenny Allford.
The Central Kansas Community Chorale was founded in the spring of 2003. Previous seasons have featured music from Handel’s “Messiah”; the Vivaldi “Gloria”; Mark Hayes’ “Te Deum”; Rutter’s “Gloria”; “The Great Choruses” of Beethoven, Handel and Mendelssohn; and a variety of shorter, traditional American works.
For more information about the Central Kansas Community Chorale, contact Fryberger by phone, 620-792-9395, or by email, frybergerv@bartonccc.edu.