University Singers Kenan Keller, left, junior history major, Jeremy Isbell, senior music major, and Will Burke, junior music theory major, practice Feb. 26 in Hartley Recital Hall.
By Kate Benedetti
A&E Editor
The University Singers choir is hard at work preparing for its upcoming annual spring tour March 20-26 under the direction of music department chairman Dr. Christopher Mathews.
About 40 students will perform at churches and high schools in Nashville; Auburn, Ala., and Kenner, La.
The choir also will perform March 23 in the St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans.
The spring tour has been a Union tradition for more than 50 years. Every third year, the Singers travel to perform at international destinations such as Italy, France, Germany, Brazil and England.
The choir’s large multilingual repertoire, including pieces in French, German, Spanish and Latin, is mostly religious but chosen and adapted in accordance with the place of each performance.
When the students visit other schools, for instance, they “try to have literature that mirrors what [the students there] do,” said Mathews.
This spring, for example, they will be singing “Amor di mi Alma,” a Spanish love song.
This year’s featured pieces will include an a capella arrangement of a gospel song called “The Love of God” by 20th century composer Frederick Lehman; a German hymn by Beethoven’s contemporary Felix Mendelssohn; and “The Lord’s Prayer” by John Shepherd, an English Renaissance composer.
