The Vassar College Madrigal Singers will present a spring concert on Sunday, April 28, at 3 p.m. in Skinner Recital Hall at Vassar College. Charles Kamm, visiting assistant professor of music directs the ensemble. The concert features three works by American composers of the twentieth century.
Howard Kilik's "Cantus" was written for the Vassar Repertory Dance Theater and the Vassar Madrigal Singers, and premiered by them at the Bardavon Opera House in Poughkeepsie in March. Texts by Walt Whitman are set for chamber choir, soloists and percussion. Kilik is composer-in-residence for the Vassar Repertory Dance Theater (VRDT) and lives in New York. This encore performance will feature dancers from the VRDT as well as the Madrigal Singers.
Kirke Mechem composes and teaches on the West Coast. His "Five Centuries of Spring" is a set of madrigalesque partsongs for mixed chorus. The poems-by Thomas Nash, William Shakespeare, William Blake, A. E. Houseman, and Edna St. Vincent Millay (a Vassar graduate)-represent each of the past five centuries. Musical motives presented in the four earlier songs return, twisted and distorted, in Millay's rather mocking poem "To what purpose, April, do you return again?"
Aaron Copland's setting of the creation story from Genesis, "In the beginning," features Emmy Bean, class of '02, as mezzo-soprano soloist. One of the more demanding a cappella choral works of the 20th century, soloist and chorus tell the biblical story of creation through chant-like recitation and pictorial musical depictions.
For more information, contact Music Department at (845) 437-7294. Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Cathy Jennings in the Office of Campus Activities at (845) 437-5370, as far in advance as possible, to request appropriate and reasonable accommodations for the event.
Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861.
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations or information on accessibility should contact Campus Activities Office at (845) 437-5370. Without sufficient notice, appropriate space and/or assistance may not be available.
Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential liberal arts college founded in 1861.
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