SUNY Plattsburgh Music Department Present Fall Choral Concert

The SUNY Plattsburgh College Chorale will open the program with “Adoramus Te,” an early Baroque motet, written in Renaissance style. The choir will continue with an Italian madrigal by di Lasso and Purcell’s “In These Delightful, Pleasant Groves.” Several contemporary arrangements of favorite pop melodies — “Eleanor Rigby” and “Stormy Weather” — will also be performed.

“When David Heard,” by Renaissance composer Weelkes, will be performed by the SUNY Plattsburgh Cardinal Singers. This work is a setting of the Biblical text describing King David’s response to the news of his son Absalom’s death.

Three contemporary madrigals by American composer Samuel Barber will be performed by the chamber choir in recognition of the anniversary of his birth. The piece, “Reincarnations,” sets to music the 1918 text by Irish poet and novelist James Stephens.

These works are typically performed by larger choirs, according to Miano, and they require multiple skills from choristers: a choral tone with a range of colors, an understanding of a Romantic musical language within a 20th-century context and strong communicative powers.

The combined chorus of College Chorale and Cardinal Singers will conclude the concert with several contemporary arrangements of American repertoire. Tenor John Thomas (a music student from Trinidad and Tobago working towards his bachelor’s degree) is featured in “Balm in Gilead,” a spiritual arranged by African-American composer, musician and educator William Dawson. The well known tune, “It Don’t Mean a Thing if It Ain’t Got that Swing,” by Duke Ellington will close the program.

Admission is free and open to the public.