The Elmhurst College Concert Choir, Chamber Singers and Women’s Chorus will perform their Spring Choral Concert on Sunday, April 10.
The Elmhurst College Concert Choir has just returned from New York City, where they performed at the National 9/11 Memorial in Manhattan and at famed Carnegie Hall. The Concert Choir is an auditioned group of students from a variety of majors who sing traditional and contemporary choral music. Last summer, the choir performed at Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Bobby McFerrin in Porgy and Bess. In December of 2014, the choir sang with world-renowned tenor Andrea Bocelli as part of his World Tour.
The Concert Choir is directed by Susan Moninger, who is celebrating her 25th year at Elmhurst College. She also directs the Elmhurst College Chamber Singers, an auditioned select ensemble that performs madrigals and other challenging Renaissance and Classical literature.
The performance by the Elmhurst College Women’s Chorus will feature the premiere performance of a piece that the ensemble commissioned from Michael Engelhardt, a composer and professor at Millikin University. Engelhardt joined the Women’s Chorus in March to conduct the rehearsal of his commissioned piece, “O Antiqui,” the first movement of a larger work that Engelhardt will compose. That larger work will embody themes of heaven and hell, light and dark. “O Antiqui” includes language by St. Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179) and is about the Virtues and their response to the Patriarchs’ and Prophets’ question, “Who are these, who seem like clouds?”
The Women’s Chorus, directed by Donna Peterson Tallman, is an auditioned select group of women from a variety of majors who sing various styles of literature, including Renaissance, classical and 20th century. The Spring Choral Concert will begin at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 10, in Hammerschmidt Memorial Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public. All seats are general seating, and the venue is accessible to the disabled.