(LUBBOCK) – The Texas Tech University School of Music will host a concert featuring the Matador Singers (Men’s Chorale) and the University Singers at 3 p.m. Sunday (Oct. 22) in Hemmle Recital Hall. The concert will be conducted by choral studies graduate student conductors and feature a collaborative keyboard accompanimet performed by choral graduate assistant David Warren.
Leading the program is Franz Schubert’s “An die Musik,” a timely ode to the transformative and comforting power of making music. The piece contains references in the text to being “transported into a better world.” Following this introduction by the Matador Singers, the University Singers will perform a percussion-driven Zulu song “Jabula Jesu” and the Eucharistic hymn “Ave verum corpus” by British composer Edward Elgar.
The selections will include a small string section of students from the University Symphony Orchestra and will be conducted by graduate conductors Minji Kim and Justin Nelson.
Additionally, early American vocal harmony will be represented by William Billings’ “David’s Lamentation.” Further American influence will be represented with a choral rendition of a song made famous by Johnny Cash: the old Western gospel classic “Poor Wayfarin’ Stranger.”
In a nod to the Oct. 24 performance to be given by the School of Music’s Concert Band, the University Singers will perform an arrangement of the popular Korean folk song “Arirang.” Student flutist Diana Kim also will perform. Student cellist Christine Kralik will assist the University Singers with noted choral composer Craig Hella Johnson’s take on the Scottish folk song “The Water Is Wide,” featuring guest faculty soloist Jeannie Barrick.
Graduate conductors Jonathon Barranco and Justin Nelson will lead the Matador Singers and percussionists Excel Haonga and Masimbi Hussein will join the all-male choir for a rendition of a rousing folk song “Tshotsholoza,” originally from Zimbabwe but popularized in South Africa. Sixteenth-century composer Jacob Handl’s reflective “Confirma Hoc Deus” and a contemporary setting by Dan Forrest of the timeless Irish hymn called “Be Thou My Vision” also will be performed.
The Matador Singers also will include popular music selections in their performance and close the entire concert with Billy Joel’s “And So It Goes,” followed by the romping barbershop quartet classic “Hello! Ma Baby.”
The concert is free and open to the public.
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