Southern Utah University’s three choirs will celebrate their return to live performances with a free, multi-choir concert on Friday, Oct. 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Heritage Center Theater.
In addition to SUU’s Concert, Opus and Luminosa Treble Choirs, choirs representing 10 high schools from across Utah, will perform at the concert under the direction of SUU professor of music Krystal McCoy.
“I look forward to this concert every year,” McCoy said. “It’s the time I get to celebrate all our new singing T-Birds.”
SUU’s Concert Choir and Opus Choir are groups open for students from all disciplines to audition. Luminosa Treble is a specialized group that focuses on material designed for “treble” voices, or youthful, higher range voices. They look far and wide across geography and through history for pieces of music to perform their focused talent on.
The high school groups are a selection of students who will be performing at the Shakespeare Competition, which the Utah Shakespeare Festival hosts each year.
The singers are excited to perform in a traditional setting, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic halted typical stage performances.
“I absolutely love getting back into the groove of singing and performing with all of my peers,” junior music education major Maddisyn Myers said. “ I am excited to have a somewhat ‘normal’ choir concert and to perform with the high school students visiting for the Shakespeare Competition.”
The choirs will be performing songs from 12 different composers including Judith Herrington, Jamie Chiphanga and Virgil Thomson, and will rotate the performing groups throughout the show.
SUU’s Department of Music keeps a calendar of their upcoming events on their website, and will have many more performances throughout the semester.
Story by Janzen Jorgensen
eic@suunews.net
Photo courtesy of SUU Department of Music