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Knox College Choir Concert
Sunday, November 5, 2017 @ 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
The Knox College Choir is going worldwide — performing selections in eight languages at its Fall Concert at 3 p.m., Sunday, November 5, in Kresge Recital Hall, Ford Center for the Fine Arts, on the Knox campus in Galesburg, Illinois.
The concert is free and open to the public.
“The Knox College Choir is always committed to exploring many languages and cultures; we’re just going a bit farther this fall,” said Choir Director Laura Lane, professor of music.
The program includes a Sufi song in Arabic; a song from Kenya sung in Swahili; a song from the movie “Slumdog Millionaire,” sung in Hindi; a work by Finnish composer Jussi Chydenius; a selection by Bach, sung in German; a song by composer Barbara Strozzi, sung in Italian; a song by Pablo Casals, sung in Latin; and “Al Shlosha D’varim,” by Allan Naplan, sung in Hebrew.
Among the selections in English is the world premiere of “Friendship,” commissioned by the Choir from Bruce Polay, professor of music at Knox and conductor/artistic director of the Knox-Galesburg Symphony. “I am so excited to be giving the world premiere of this beautiful new piece by my dear friend and colleague, Bruce Polay!” Lane said. “This week in rehearsal, the students sang ‘Friendship’ for Bruce for the first time, and he was very pleased with our interpretation. His suggestions helped us bring the work to life in a more meaningful way.”
Lane said the rehearsal process focused on details of the languages represented in the concert.
“I speak a few words of Swahili, but I met with some people who are from Kenya, to get the accent right and to learn more about the beautiful Kenyan song,” Lane said. “Choir president Lara Braverman speaks Hebrew. No one in the choir is a native speaker of Arabic, but I learned it from the composer. I speak German and many in the choir have studied Latin, German and Spanish. ‘Jai Ho,’ from ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ has both Spanish and Hindi, and one of the choir members Shubham Moitra, helped with Hindi pronunciations.”
The Knox College Choir has performed throughout the United States and in several European countries. The Choir’s latest CD, drawn from selections performed on their tour of France earlier this year, has just been released and will be available for sale at the concert.
