BYU Choirs and Symphony to take the stage

By David Luker

BYU”s Singers and Concert choir will take the stage of the de Jong on Tuesday and Thursday at 7:30 p.m. The BYU Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band will fill the gap on Wednesday for an evening Valentine”s Day performance.

“This is going to be a really upbeat concert,” said Rosalind Hall, conductor of BYU”s Concert Choir. “So much choral music is slow and beautiful, and for sure we”ll have some slow and beautiful in this concert. But this program contains less of this genre and maybe more pizzazz.”

The BYU choirs usually perform individually in a Winter”s Chorus Festival, but this year they”ve tried something different.

“Each concert is combined with two choirs,” Hall said. “They only have to prepare half the repertoire and it makes for great concerts.”

Often, the BYU choirs will perform solo concerts and then not perform for months at a time. The choirs are now combining their concerts, performing half of each choir”s music, and performing more often.

Both Hall and Ronald Staheli, conductor of BYU Singers, said the audience is in for a great concert with a few surprises. “It”s going to be a totally different kind of concert for Singer”s and Concert Choir,” Staheli said. “I can”t tell you what the surprise will be, but it”s going to be a great surprise for the audience.”

BYU choirs are known for performing songs from different regions around the world and this concert is no exception. “We are doing seven songs in seven different languages, none of them in English,” Staheli said. There will be a lot of instrumental accompaniment to give the music the right atmosphere and environment.

The two choirs will combine to open the concert with “Kyrie,” a composition by Benjamin Boster, a senior from Adrian, Ore., majoring in vocal performance.

“It took me a little over a year to complete it,” Boster said. “For me it”s more of a prayer, a pleading prayer. So that”s how I”ve tried to shape it.”

The Kyrie is the first sung prayer in the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass. “The text is more traditional,” Boster said. He rewrote the music several times before puzzling the pieces together for completion.

“It”s a great way to brighten up the dreariness of winter. A “Concert for a Winter”s Eve” should be heart warming, and it really is,” Hall said.

The BYU Wind Symphony and Symphonic Band, conducted by BYU professors David Blackington and Don Peterson, will also perform in the de Jong on Valentine”s Day at 7:30 p.m. They will feature music from “West Side Story,” “Procession of Nobles,” and even some polka.