Concert: Goshen College Choirs Spring Concert
Date and Time: Saturday, April 8, 2006 – 7:30 p.m.
Location: Sauder Concert Hall, Music Center
Cost: $6 adults, $4 seniors/students. Free for GC students with valid ID.

Final Goshen College choral concert of the year April 8

GOSHEN, Ind. – For a relatively small campus, a large percentage of the Goshen College student body – nearly a quarter of all students – and a very active music department produce immense and varied sound. Goshen College’s four choirs – the Chorale, Chamber Choir, Women’s World Music Choir and Men’s Chorus – will perform a spring concert on April 8 at 7:30 p.m. in the Goshen College Music Center’s Sauder Concert Hall. In a final concert of the year, all of the choirs will be honoring their graduating members during this concert.

The Chamber Choir, directed by Professor of Music Debra Brubaker, will perform “Flight of the Bumblebee” and an arrangement of the Beatles tune “Eleanor Rigby.”

The Goshen College Chorale, directed by Associate Professor of Music James Heiks, will present “Cloudburst,” an extraordinary work by contemporary composer Eric Whitacre accompanied by a host of unusual instruments, including a large sheet of steel called a “thunder sheet.”

The Women’s Choir, also directed by Brubaker, will perform an illustration of a short story told by a young girl from peacetime Baghdad, Iraq. The group will be joined by the dance troupe Svatura, directed by local dance instructor Melanie Wade, which will dance a Middle Eastern dance. Additional songs will include a Japanese children’s song; a song combining Swahili, Spanish and English; and a spiritual including several members of the faculty and staff.

The Goshen College Men’s Chorus, also directed by Heiks, invited members of the college’s male faculty and staff to join them on the concert. This combined men’s chorus will perform a piece from the northern Italian Alps. The composer, Bepi De Marzi, is well known in the region for music that requires sustained powerful singing. The Men’s Chorus will also be joining the Women’s World Music Choir in singing a 13th century Georgian Wedding Song.

The Men’s Chorus and Women’s World Music Choir debuted in February 2004, revitalizing a tradition of choirs for men and for women in addition to mixed-voices choirs. Goshen College’s Music Department maintains four choral ensembles, two instrumental ensembles, an opera scenes program and a growing chamber music program.

Brubaker, who came to Goshen College in 1999, oversees the choral and opera theater programs, as well as teaching voice and church music courses. She holds a doctorate of musical arts degree from the University of Kansas, a master’s of music degree from the University of Northern Colorado and an undergraduate degree in music from Goshen College. Her choirs have performed with the Toledo Symphony and South Bend Symphony, as well as touring many parts of the United States and Canada, including the Washington National Cathedral and the World Trade Center site. Her choirs have collaborated and performed with such noted conductors as Alice Parker, Vance George, Donald Neuen and Gregg Smith. A focus of her energies is exploring how the use of hymn singing can become a catalyst for connection between people of differing cultures, faiths and circumstances.

Heiks joined Goshen College in 2003 after a 30-year career in the Appleton, Wis., public schools. He is also the founder of the Appleton Boychoir, which celebrated its 25^th anniversary last year. His choirs have performed in Eastern Europe, Italy, Scandinavia, Russia, Mexico and Japan. In 1997, he received the Kohl Fellowship for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching from U.S. Senator Herb Kohl and was nominated for Wisconsin Teacher of the Year. In 1998 he was awarded Outstanding Teacher in Wisconsin by Lawrence University. As a student and colleague of Alice Parker, he collaborated with her on a new folk songbook series. GIA published the first book, Alice Parker’s Hand-Me-Down Songs in 2005.

Tickets are available at the door for the choral concert and cost $6 for adults, $4 for seniors/students and GC students can get in free with ID.

Editors: For more information about this release, to arrange an interview or request a photo, contact Goshen College News Bureau Director Jodi H. Beyeler at (574) 535-7572 or jodihb@goshen.edu.

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Goshen College, established in 1894, is a four-year residential Christian liberal arts college rooted in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition. The college’s Christ-centered core values – passionate learning, global citizenship, compassionate peacemaking and servant-leadership – prepare students as leaders for the church and world. Recognized for its unique Study-Service Term program, Goshen has earned citations of excellence in Barron’s Best Buys in Education, “Colleges of Distinction,” “Making a Difference College Guide” and U.S.News & World Report’s “America’s Best Colleges” edition, which named Goshen a “least debt college.” Visit www.goshen.edu.