How does the Arabian Passion According to J.S. Bach featuring Arab musicians, two jazz saxophonists, a string quartet and a Lebanese singer grab you? The Arabian Passion is the brainchild of Vladimir Ivanoff, who is the Bulgarian founder and music director of the culture straddling ensemble Sarband. Ivanoff sees parallels between the story of occupation and persecution in the Middle East […]
News and Notices
Music Returns To Port-au-Prince
Amid the desperation and despair in earthquake-ravaged Port-au-prince, musicians from Haiti’s national chorus, jazz band and philharmonic gave their first post-quake concert. The musicians were able to rescue some instruments from the rubble, and they held the concert in the devastated neighborhood of Bell Aire to bring hope to the displaced. Audio report on […]
Composer John Leavitt @ MidAmerica Nazarene University
Composer, conductor, teacher, and church musician are all titles familiar to John Leavitt. To the students of MidAmerica Nazarene University, he is the new choir director. Just days before the end of the fall semester, Professor Juan Hernandez stepped down as the Director of Choral Activities to take the position of Assistant Dean of Music […]
New Website for Choirs in the Midwest – ChoralExpress!
Tim Sharp Premieres New Handel Work
by Rainier Ehrhardt/Staff It took classical choral composer George Handel less than a month to write his masterpiece Messiah , but more than 250 years for a lesser work to see the light of day. Tim Sharp conducts members of the combined Davidson Chorale, Southern Chorale from Georgia Southern University, and the Reid Memorial […]
Gay chorus hits hinterlands to open hearts
When the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus embarked on its Freedom Tour into the heart of Proposition 8 territory over the weekend, there were concerns. Would red-state towns like Redding and Chico turn out to see gay men in tuxedos singing “Over the Rainbow”? Would there be protests, threats or fear-mongering from Shasta County’s fundamentalist […]