A captivating Collage

Middle school students and undergraduates, vocal majors and non-majors, men's Chorus and women's Chorus - all will share the same stage on Sunday when the School of Music presents its Choral Collage concert at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center.

The 90-minute show will feature sets of two to three pieces each by seven different choral ensembles. The repertoire will include the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, Felix Mendelssohn and Stephen Hatfield, as well as several other renowned composers.

For the singers, the concert marks a unique opportunity to get out of the rehearsal room and onto the stage, performing in front of an audience that will include the Family Weekend crowd.

"It's great for the parents to come and see their students up there," University Chorale conductor Nicole Aldrich said. "We do all the ensembles at once, so they get to see pretty much everybody. It's also a great preview for our final concerts in November, so the community people can come and listen to what's coming up."

The concert will open with Aldrich's University Chorale, a group featuring both vocal majors and non-majors. Junior music education major and Chorale singer Tayrn Gordon doesn't think the mixture is any sort of hindrance, though, citing the ensemble's impressive track record as reason to bring high expectations.

"We are a mix of majors and non-majors, but we perform at the Kennedy Center and a lot of the places where the elite perform at as well," Gordon said. "We're not all vocal majors, but we have a lot of talent. We do really fun repertoire this semester, but we have a nice sound to go with it."

And the University Chorale won't be the only ensemble on hand with students from a variety of majors - the Men's Chorus and Women's Chorus do, as well. Those groups will perform during the middle portion of the show, along with the Maryland Chorus (a mixture of community members, students, faculty, staff and alumni) and Femmes de Chanson (a female a cappella group).

The Maryland Boy Choir, a Grammy-winning collection of local males ages eight to 14, will be the last to perform before the Chamber Singers, the School of Music's most select choral ensemble, closes out the concert.

"They each have different conductors, so you get a very different sound from each group and a different choice of repertoire," Aldrich said. "Each group really does have its own personality. It's the variety of style and sound plus the high level of achievement that makes it really worth coming to."

With the semester a little more than a month old, the concert also presents a chance to see the effect of new blood on the ensembles.

"This year, getting a chance to work with a new conductor and a lot of new people in the group, it's sort of us rising to the challenge of a new group and putting forward this great concert with completely new repertoire and a new spirit," said University Chorale student assistant Spencer Goldberg, a sophomore vocal performance major.

In the end, though, Gordon said she is simply looking forward to easing up and taking in the music.

"It is finally letting go of all the rhythm and diction and everything that you practice up until the performance, and then just enjoying it," Gordon said.

The Choral Collage will take place Sunday at 3 p.m. in CSPAC's Dekelboum Concert Hall. Admission is free.

tfloyd1@umd.edu