Albert Lea choirs, orchestra host first concert this year

Published 10:37 pm Friday, October 5, 2018

The Albert Lea High School music department will present its first concert of the year Oct. 15, according to a press release. The concert will be at St. Theodore Catholic Church in Albert Lea.

There will be two different concerts to accommodate the growing music program and the large crowd. The concert at 6:30 p.m. will feature the ALHS Tiger orchestra, the Celebr8 choir and the Tiger choir. The concert at 8 p.m. will be the symphony orchestra, varsity choir and concert choir.

The orchestras are directed by Rebekah Crissinger and the choirs by Nathan Lange and Diane Heaney.

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The Tiger orchestra will perform arrangements of classical favorites, including a beautiful piece titled “Lights on the Water,” in which the students have worked on creating musical images through the use of dynamics and articulations. The symphony orchestra will perform “Preludio” by Paul Whear and an exciting two-movement piece titled “A Birch Bay Celebration.”​

All four choirs will perform both secular and sacred works.

Celebr8 choir will start with “Soli Deo Gloria” by Renaissance composer Michael Praetorius, followed by “Catch a Falling Star,” arranged by Hawley Ades, before ending with “Good News!” an African-American spiritual arranged by Roger Emerson.

Tiger choir students will sing two madrigals by Emma Lou Diemer, “Hold Me, Rock Me” by Tate, “Both Sides Now” and a new Jacob Narverud arrangement of “We are One.”

The eighth- and ninth-grade choirs will combine to finish with “Dereva Ni Mungu” by Jake Runestad.

Varsity choir will sing “Will You Teach Me?” by Eric Unruh and several pieces by women composers, including “Warrior” by Kim Baryluk and “By the Rivers of Babylon” by Susan LaBarr.

Concert choir will sing the classic “Shenandoah,” “Blagoslovi, dushe moya, Ghopsoda” in Russian, “Famine Song” by Culloton and “Rise Up,” made popular by Andra Day.

For the finale, the concert choir will perform pieces from Vivaldi’s “Gloria” with the chamber strings.

Tickets for the concert are $7 for adults and $5 for seniors and students, and are available at the door. There will also be a $35  family music concert pass sold at the door that will admit a family to all regular orchestra, band and choir concerts for the whole year.