Choral Festival
About the event
High School students from across Washington and Idaho will attend the WSU Choral Festival October 28
WSU Concert Choir, under the direction of Dr. Lori Wiest
The Vocal/Choral Music Faculty within the School of Music at WSU will continue its long-standing tradition of presenting the Twenty-fourth Annual Educational Choral Festival on Saturday, October 28 in Kimbrough Concert Hall from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm (3:45-4:30 pm will be in Bryan Hall) and in Bryan Hall Theatre from 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm for the concluding Festival Concert. Designed to assist high school music programs in providing an early, motivational opportunity for musical growth in a non-competitive, positive learning environment, the Choral and Vocal Music Faculty at WSU work directly with the visiting high school choirs from Washington and Idaho. Each choir has individual performances in Kimbrough Concert Hall throughout the day between 9:00 am and 3:30 pm and individualized workshops in two rehearsal rooms of Kimbrough Hall. Directors of the ensembles also have the opportunity to meet with the WSU Music Faculty in a private consultation regarding goals and objectives for the year as they relate to their own choirs. WSU faculty Lori Wiest, Julie Anne Wieck, Dean Luethi, Brian Carter and Christopher Sierra and Sarah Graham, faculty member at Lewis and Clark College and director of the Palouse Choral Society, will serve as clinicians. Throughout the day, the participants will also hear performances by the WSU Opera Workshop, directed by Dr. Julie Anne Wieck, and Treble Choir and Tenor/Bass Choir, directed by Dr. Dean Luethi in addition to the 5:00 pm concluding concert which will feature the WSU Madrigal/Chamber Singers and Concert Choir, conducted by Dr. Lori Wiest.
The 5:00 pm concert in Bryan Hall Theatre will open with the Madrigal/Chamber Singers performing English Renaissance madrigals that portray the various emotions one experiences within relationships: light, playful, teasing, joyful, painful and sorrowful. Select works include “Hark, All Ye Lovely Saints” by Thomas Weelkes, “Ah, Dear Heart” by Orlando Gibbons, “A Little Pretty Bonny Lass” by John Farmer, “Weep, O Mine Eyes” by John Bennet, and “Quick, Quick, Away, Dispatch!” by Michael East. The WSU Concert Choir will perform selections connected by the theme “Celestial Voices” poetry and music that reflects its message through images of the spheres, the planets, and the sun and moon. Included will be an epic short tale of “The Boy Who Picked Up His Feet To Fly” by Joshua Shank, “Muusika” by Estonian composer Pӓrt Uusberg, “The Spheres” from Sunrise Mass by Ola Gjeilo, “The Wisdom of the Moon” by Susan LaBarr, “Cells Planets” by Erika Lloyd and arranged by Vince Peterson, and “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” by Ralph Vaughan Williams and arranged for piano four-hands by Craig Courtney. Laura Hendrickson is the accompanist of Concert Choir.
14 high school choirs from across the states of Washington and Idaho will be participating in the festival: Moses Lake High School Men’s Choir, Women’s Choir and Select Women’s Choir, Hanford High School Varsity Women (Richland), Pullman High School Treble Triad, Post Falls High School Women’s Select, Othello High School Chamber Choir, Moscow High School Choir, Central Valley High School Acappella Choir (Spokane), Medical Lake High School Windborne Choir, Lindbergh High School Ad Astra (Renton), East Valley High School Viva la Noche (Spokane), Royal High School Chamber Choir (Royal City), and Rogers High School Una Voce (Spokane).
All of the festival performance events are open to the public free of charge. Events in Kimbrough Concert Hall will continue between 9:00 am and 3:30 pm, move into Bryan Hall at 3:45-4:30pm and the concluding Festival Concert will be held at 5:00-6:30 pm in Bryan Hall Theatre.