NATCHITOCHES – The Northwestern State University Chamber Choir will present their spring concert on Thursday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m. from Magale Recital Hall. There will be no audience for the concert. A livestream will be available at capa.nsula.edu/livestream. Director of Choral Activities Dr. Nicholaus B. Cummins will lead the choir. The program is called Spring Mosaic and features sacred music of different genres.
“We wanted something that our audiences would be able to listen to and just release stress for about 30 minutes,” said Cummins.
The choir will perform “Ave Verum Corpus” by Colin Mawby, “Dies Irae & Lacrymosa” from “REQUIEM” by Zdenek Lukas, “Alleluia” by Elaine Hagenberg, “Salutation” by Eriks Esenvalds, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” by Norman Luboff featuring soloist soprano Kylie Dornbush, a sophomore music education major from Huntington Beach, California, “Precious Lord” by Arnold Sevier and “The Word was with God” by Rosephanye Powell
“We are excited about people being able to watch us from their home,” said Cummins. “Many choirs around the world are finally beginning to sing again and we are thrilled this will be our last semester to be online only.”
The Northwestern Chamber Choir is the flagship choral ensemble at Northwestern State and is comprised of 32 undergraduates encompassing over 15 different majors throughout the university. The choir frequently collaborates with composers and conductors for projects including most recently “For a Breath of Ecstasy,” commissioned from composer Michael Trotta, “The Falling Stars” by Richard Burchard, and “O Lux Beatissima” by Vytautas Miškinis. In 2019, they performed at the Eighth National Conference of the National Collegiate Choral Conference National Conference and placed third and won best compulsory performance in the AVE VERUM ICC in Baden, Austria. The choir was invited to perform in St. Martin’s Church in the Wall for the Czech National Night of Churches in Prague. In 2018, the choir placed second in the Laurea Mundi Budapest in Budapest, Hungary, and performed concerts in Krakow, Poland.
Cummins said the choir is excited to continue its collaboration with Burchard and look forward to releasing a CD of his works. The choir is continuing a recording project that will conclude in April with the final product releasing next fall.
