NATCHITOCHES – The award-winning Northwestern State University Chamber Choir will livestream their fall concert on Thursday, Oct. 29 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 “How Can I Keep from Singing?” and features music that is either popular tunes, upbeat music or famous folk music.
“We wanted something that our audiences would be able to listen to and forget about the ongoing pandemic for a while,” said Cummins. “We are excited about people being able to watch us from their home. We are fortunate that we have found a way to sing safely and still continue to perform. Many choirs around the world are currently unable to sing due to COVID, but we are able and excited to be able to sing for our supporters.’
The concert will feature the premiere of an arrangement of ” My Old Kentucky Home” by composer Richard Burchard written for the Northwestern Chamber Choir. Cummins said the choral program is excited to continue its collaboration with Burchard. There are plans for the Chamber Choir to release a CD of Burchard’s works next fall 2021.
The choir will also perform “Deep River” featuring mezzo soprano Emily Saldivar, a junior music education major from Brownsville, Texas, “Worthy To Be Praised” featuring Jayvian Bush, a music education major from Lafayette and Kat Wilkinson, a sophomore music education major from Patterson. The program will also include “Suliko,” a Georgian folk tune about love, “What a Wonderful World” featuring soprano Emily Adams, a senior vocal Performance major from Raceland and “The Long Day Closes.”
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 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. The Chamber Choir plans to release a CD and iTunes recording of the music of Burchard in Fall 2021.
