Concert Appearances & Programs

Chamber Singers Repertoire

A  listing of works presented in concert by the Chamber Singers from spring 1999- spring 2007.

Our previous concert appearances...  

Our  2006/2007 season

Sunday, October 8, 2006 , 10am, Mead Chapel.
Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service

Sunday, October 22, 2006 , 10am, Mead Chapel.
Homecoming Weekend Chapel Service

Saturday, November 18, 2006 , 8:00 p.m., CFA Concert Hall.
Fall concert .   A cappella selections from the Renaissance to the present, including music by Byrd, Rachmaninoff, Poulenc, Whitacre, and more!

Sunday, December 10, 2006 , 4:00 and 7:00p.m., Mead Chapel. Lessons & Carols . Traditional program combining choral music, congregational singing, and biblical texts for Advent and Christmas.

Sunday, April 22, 2007 , 3:00 p.m. , CFA Concert Hall.
A Springtime Choral Potpourri . Our annual spring concert, with a delightful variety of choral music from past and present. Music of Byrd, Tallis, Duruflé, Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, Claudio Monteverdi, Arvo Pärt, Moses Hogan . 
(The concert date was originally Friday, April 20; we've moved the concert due to Relay For Life cancer fund-raising event that evening)

Friday, May 25, 2007 , 8:00 p.m., Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Annual Commencement Weekend Concert . In honor of the class of 2007, featuring favorite pieces selected by our seniors performed during their time at Middlebury.

Saturday, May 26, 2006 , Mead Chapel. Baccalaureate Services

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Highlights of our 2006/2007 season

Spring Concert 2007

The concert opens with music by two masters of the English Renaissance – William Byrd's bouyant Sing Joyfully and Thomas Tallis's contemplative Salvator mundi. The program continues with beautiful settings of the tune Ubi caritas by French 20 ^th -century composer Maurice Duruflé and contemporary Minnesota composer-conductor René Clausen. Duruflé's setting of Tota Pulchra Es for women's voices is also featured. Estonian-born composer Arvo Pärt is represented by his 1996 composition I am the True Vine. One of the newest choral works by American composer Eric Whitacre, A Boy and A Girl, will be sung, alongside the hauntingly beautiful piece, Sleep. The concert includes contrasting settings of Italian madrigal texts, featuring those set in the late 16 ^th century by Claudio Monteverdi and in the 1990s by American composer Morten Lauridsen.

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Fall Concert 2006
Saturday evening, November 18, 2006 8:00 p.m.
Center for the Arts Concert Hall. Free Admission

The rich a cappella sounds of Renaissance and contemporary choral music resound as the Middlebury College Chamber Singers present their first concert of the 2006-2007 season, conducted by Jeff Rehbach. The program includes settings of Ave Maria and Ave Verum Corpus attributed to Tomás Luis de Victoria and William Byrd; an energetic setting of Psalm 150 by contemporary Brazilian composer Ernani Aguiar; and a beautiful setting of "Set Me as a Seal" by Minnesota conductor-compose René Clausen. Also on the program are folk-song arrangements by Percy Grainger and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Moses Hogan's dynamic setting of "Elijah Rock." The blended sounds of the Chamber Singers will give voice to French composer Camille Saint-Saens' "Calme des Nuits", Australian composer Sarah Hopkins' haunting "Past Life Melodies", and Dale Warland's setting of the Sara Teasdale poem "There will be rest." The program features selections from Francis Poulenc's Motets for the Season of Christmas, including "O magnum mysterium" and "Hodie Christus Natus Est", and contemporary composer Eric Whitacre's Songs of Faith on poems of e. e. cummings: "i will wade out" and "i thank You God for most this amazing day."

Our 2005/2006 season

Sunday, October 2, 2005, 10am, Mead Chapel.
Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service

Sunday, October 16, 2005, 10am, Mead Chapel.
Homecoming Weekend Chapel Service

Sunday, October 30, 2005, 10am, Mead Chapel.
Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service

Saturday, December 3, 2005, 8:00 p.m., CFA Concert Hall.
On Winter's Eve .   We sing a cappella selections, as well as join the College Orchestra for a special performance. (see details below)

Sunday, December 11, 2005, 4:00 and 7:00p.m., Mead Chapel.
Lessons & Carols . Traditional program combining choral music,
congregational singing, and biblical texts for Advent and Christmas.

Saturday, April 22, 2006, 8:00 p.m., CFA Concert Hall.
A Springtime Choral Potpourri .
A delightful variety of choral music from the Renaissance to the present. See description below.

Friday, May 26, 2006, 8:00 p.m., Center for the Arts Concert Hall.
Annual Commencement Weekend Concert . In honor of the class of 2006, featuring favorite pieces selected by our seniors performed during their time at Middlebury.

Saturday, May 27, 2006, Mead Chapel.
Baccalaureate Services

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Highlights of our 2005/2006 season

A choral potpourri
Saturday evening, April 22, 2006

~ pre-concert lecture-demonstration at 7:00pm with Peter Hamlin and the Chamber Singers ~  

This year's Chamber Singers annual springtime concert program features the world premiere of a new work by Middlebury College alumnus and music department faculty member Peter Hamlin '73 – a newly composed song cycle, Nature Revisited , on the poetry of Middlebury College author Jay Parini that depicts the way we may view seasons and the nature against the backdrop of today's society. Also on the program are sacred motets based on traditional chant and hymn tunes: Veni sponsa Christi by Renaissance composer G.P. da Palestrina, and O Heiland, reiss die Himmel auf by German Romantic composer Johannes Brahms. The program includes the lush sounds of contemporary choral music from around the globe by Jan Sandström (Sweden), Javier Busto (Spain), Eleanor Daley (Ontario, Canada), Stephen Chatman (British Columbia, Canada), as well as Vermont composer-conductor Troy Peters' new composition Vain World adieu written for Social Band's Vermont Composers Project. The Chamber Singers also will sing a selection of songs originally arranged for the King's Singers, including U2's MLK and the folk song Londonderry Air (Danny Boy) , and a dynamic arrangement of the spiritual The Battle of Jericho by the noted choral conductor Moses Hogan.

On Winter's Eve: Chamber Singers and College Orchestra.
Saturday evening, December 3, 2005 

The Chamber Singers open this special program with the rich a cappella sounds of Renaissance and contemporary choral music, including the joyful Gaudete, guadete!; settings of O magnum mysterium our by T. L. da Victoria and contemporary Venezuelan composer César Carrillo; settings by award-winning Spanish composer Javier Busto; and a selection of  16 ^th -century European songs and madrigals about winter and the cold of night by Weelkes, Eccard, Lassus, and Morley. The Orchestra will play Handel's Concerto a due cori HWV 332, the second movement of which is an instrumental reworking of "And the Glory of the Lord" from Messiah. The ensembles join forces to perform Morten Lauridsen's exquisite Lux Aeterna, written in 1997, with Latin texts drawn from sacred sources that refer to lux (light), set to lush harmonies and soaring melodies.

Our  2004/2005 season

Sunday, October 3, 2004, 10am, Mead Chapel.
Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service

Sunday, October 10, 2004, 10am, Mead Chapel.
Homecoming Weekend Chapel Service

Sunday, October 10, 2004, 11:30am, on the green by the new library.
Inauguration of President Ronald D. Liebowitz , with choral selections from Haydn's Creation and Bernstein's Chichester Psalms.

Sunday, October 24, 2004, 10am, Mead Chapel.
Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service

Saturday, December 4, 2004, 8:00 p.m., CFA Concert Hall.
Nowell Sing We!   Our popular holiday program with carols and motets from medieval times to the present.

About the 2004 Nowell Sing We! concert...

On Saturday evening, December 4, 2004 , 8:00 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall, the 23 members of the Middlebury College Chamber Singers will present Nowell Sing We , with the rich a cappella sounds of Renaissance and contemporary polyphonic choral music, as well as delightful settings of holiday songs and carols from medieval times to the present. Jeff Rehbach directs the Chamber Singers in this special holiday program. Admission to the concert is free.

From the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, the program includes the English carols dating back to the 15th century; William Byrd's lush setting of O magnum mysterium; and Spanish composer Cristobal Morales' setting of Puer natus est.  The choir will also sing traditional German carols from the 16th and 17th centuries such as Joseph, lieber Joseph, mein by Johann Walther; Lo how a rose e'er blooming by Michael Praetorius; and In dulci jubilo as arranged by Praetorius and J. S. Bach. From the eighteenth-century American shape-note singing tradition, the Chamber Singers will perform settings of If angels sung ( Milford ) and While Shepherds watch their flocks (Sherburne) . Expressive contemporary works by Benjamin Britten, John Joubert, John Tavener, Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, and Middlebury's Peter Hamlin are also planned, alongside charming arrangements of the traditional carols Angels we have heard on high and Silent Night. The program also features delightful settings of Chanukah songs, as well as the popular carols Deck the Hall, The Wassail Song, Jingle Bells and The 12 days of Christmas.  

Sunday, December 12, 2004, 4:00 and 7:00p.m., Mead Chapel.
Lessons & Carols . Traditional program combining choral music,
congregational singing, and biblical texts of the season.

Saturday, April 16, 2005, 8:00 p.m., CFA Concert Hall.
A Springtime Choral Potpourri .
A delightful variety of choral music from renaissance to modern times.

Sunday, May 1, 2005, 4:00 p.m., Mead Chapel.
A special program with the College-Community Chorus and the College Orchestra, featuring Ernst Bloch's  Sacred Service (sung in Hebrew), in honor of Hillel's 50th anniversary at Middlebury College.

Friday, May 20, 2005, 8:00 p.m., Center for the Arts Concert Hall.
Annual Commencement Weekend Concert . In honor of the class of 2005,
featuring favorite pieces selected by our seniors performed during their time at Middlebury.

Saturday, May 21, 2005, Mead Chapel.
Baccalaureate Services 

Our  2003/2004 season

2003-October-12. Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service.

2003-October-23. Workshop with La Venexiana.
see pictures from the workshop at http://community.middlebury.edu/~coyne/LaVenexiana.htm

2003-October-26. Homecoming Weekend Chapel Service.

2003-November-2. Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service.

2003-November-4. Workshop with I Fagiolini.
see pictures from the workshop at http://community.middlebury.edu/~coyne/ifagiolini.htm

2003-November-8. Our Fall Concert.
Italian and English madrigals and anthems; music by Debussy, Morten Lauridsen, Eric Whitacre, and Arvo Pärt.

2003-December-7.  Annual Service of Lessons & Carols.
Traditional program combining choral music, congregational singing, and biblical texts of the season.

2004-April-24. A Springtime Choral Potpourri.
A delightful variety of choral music from renaissance to modern times.

About our April 24, 2004 concert...
On Saturday evening, April 24, the Middlebury College Chamber Singers, directed by Jeff Rehbach, will present its annual spring concert. The hour-long program draws on the Chamber Singers' repertoire of music from Renaissance times to the present.  Senior music major Jessica Isler will conduct a portion of the concert.  The performance begins at 8:00 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall.  Admission is free. The program opens with works composed for the church by three well-known Renaissance composers: William Byrd of England, Tomás Luis de Victoria of Spain, and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina of Italy.  The Chamber Singers will then perform three contemporary American choral works, composed during the past fifteen years: Daniel Gawthrop's "Sing me to Heaven"; Morten Lauridsen's "O nata lux"; and Eric Whitacre's "Lux aurumque."  From nineteenth century Europe, the group will sing Anton Bruckner's beautiful setting of "Ave Maria" as well as selections from Johannes Brahms dance-like "Zigeunerlieder (Gypsy Songs)." Also on the program is music by several other American composers. Included is Williametta Spencer's award-winning composition based on a poem of John Donne, "At the round earth's imagined corners."  Samuel Barber, perhaps most well-known for his Adagio for Strings, also wrote several choral works, and the Chamber Singers will perform two of them from his "Reincarnations" suite; these settings are based on the poetry of James Stephens, after the Irish of Raftery.  In a more humorous light, the Chambers will sing of the twists and turns of romance as conveyed in Paul Sjolund's "Love Lost" suite.  The program concludes with songs of the sea, with arrangements of traditional folk songs by Swedish composer Robert Sund and British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

2004-May-21. Annual Commencement Weekend Concert.
In honor of the class of 2004, featuring favorite pieces selected by our seniors performed during their time at Middlebury.  

2004-May-24. Baccalaureate Services

Our  2002/2003 season

2002-Nov-9. Chapel, Court, and Countryside
Including works of Byrd, Palestrina, Poulenc, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartok, and Vaughan Williams, and Conte. Music composed in the 16th century Spanish, French, and English courts, as well as madrigals, partsongs, and folksong arrangements.

2002-Dec-8. Annual Service of Lessons and Carols

2003-May-9. A Choral Potpourri with music from medieval to modern times.

2003-May-23. 2003 Commencement Concert . Including favorite works of the choir members performed in past seasons. The program features favorite pieces selected by our seniors performed during their time at Middlebury. During the past four years, the seniors have performed more than 100 different compositions with the choir! This program draws on that extensive repertory dating from the Renaissance era to present times, including works by G. P. da Palestrina, Tomás Luis de Victoria, Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Maurice Duruflé, Arvo Pärt, Michael Tippett, and Morten Lauridsen.
A special salute to these students who have sung with the Chamber Singers while at Middlebury: Sally Olson, Lisa Raatikainen, and Tim Soslow. 

Our 2002 season...

On Friday evening, April 26, 2002, 8:00 p.m. in Mead Chapel , the Middlebury College Chamber Singers and the Dartmouth Chamber Singers combined for a special program of contemporary music. The concert was repeated at Rollins Chapel on the Dartmouth campus on Wednesday, May 1.

The Middlebury Chamber Singers premiered De Profundis , an a cappella composition based on Psalm texts written for the ensemble. The Dartmouth Chamber Singers performed American choral music selected from their March tour program in Japan.

The combined groups, under the direction of Middlebury's Jeff Rehbach, performed music composed in the last quarter of the 20th century: Arvo Pärt 's beautiful settings of The Beatitudes and Cantate Domino , as well as the Agnus Dei from Lux Aeterna by Morten Lauridsen . Arvo Pärt was born in Estonia in 1935, and moved to Vienna and later Berlin in the 1980s. Since the late 1970s he has composed using his own "tintinnabuli style" that combines stepwise motion of a scale sung against the constant sound of oscillating triads sung or played by other voices, creating a bell-like effect. Morten Lauridsen was born in the state of Washington in 1943, and is Composer in Residence of the Los Angeles Chorale. He has earned numerous commissions, grants, and prizes for his compositions. Middlebury audiences may remember hearing the Chamber Singers sing Lauridsen's haunting, beautiful O magnum mysterium at their Nowell Sing We concert and Lessons & Carols this past December.

Timothy Newton led the singers in Leonard Bernstein 's dynamic Chichester Psalms . Commissioned by Chichester Cathedral for its annual festival in 1965, Bernstein set six Psalms in their original Hebrew to music. His selection of Psalms reflect his delight in music and his longing for world peace: Psalm 108 ( Awake psaltery and harp ), Psalm 100 ( Make a joyful noise unto God! ), Psalm 23 ( The Lord is my Shepherd ), Psalm 2 ( Why do the nations rage ), Psalm 131 ( Lord, my heart is not haughty ), and Psalm 133 ( Behold how good and pleasant it for brethren to dwell together in unity ). Organ, harp, and percussion accompaniment add special color to this performance of one of Bernstein's classic choral compositions.

On Saturday evening, November 9, 2002, 8:00 p.m. in the Center for the Arts Concert Hall, the Chamber Singers sang of Chapel, Court, and Countryside. Our program included sacred music from the Renaissance to the 20th century, including works of Byrd, Palestrina, Poulenc, and Conte. We honored past kings and queens of England, Spain, France and Germany with music composed in the 16th century courts. And we journeyed through the countrysides of Europe, Africa, and the United States with a selection of madrigals, partsongs, and folksong arrangements, including works by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Bartok, and Vaughan Williams.

To end the fall 2002 semester, we participated in the Annual Service of Lessons and Carols at Mead Chapel on December 8. We sang English composer John Joubert's beautiful setting of There is no rose, as well as a renaissance setting of Magi videntes stellam (The wise men saw a star), and joined the College choir in singing Mendelssohn's Behold a star from Jacob shining.

Our  2001/2002 season

2001-Dec-02. Nowell Sing We:  Choral music for the Advent and Christmas Seasons.
Including works by Josquin, Mouton, Lassus, Praetorius, Rutter, Ives, Lauridsen.

2001-Dec-9. Annual Service of Lessons and Carols. 

2002-Apr-26 and May-1. Bernstein'sChichester Psalms, and works by Morten Lauridsen, Arvo Pärt, Maurice Durufle, Healey Willan, and Hitoshi Yamaguchi '02. Combined concert with the Dartmouth Chamber Singers.

2002-May-24. 2002 Commencement Concert.

2000-2001 season

2001-Dec-10. Annual Service of Lessons and Carols .

2001-May-25. 2001 Commencement Concert .

2001-May-09. Spring Concert .
Including works by Willan, Brahms, Vaughan Williams, Randall Thompson, Britten, Bernstein, Pärt.

Spring 2000

2000-March. European concert tour.
Concerts in Oxford, London and Paris, including works by Byrd, Weelkes, Brahms, Durufle, Poulenc, Tippett.

2000-April. Bach's music for the Lenten season .
Performing chorales alongside organ chorale-preludes performed by organist Susan Mason

2000-April. Music from 1800.
As part of Middlebury College Chamber Soloists concert, Mozart Freimason canata and New England singing master hymns.

2000-May. Bicentennial Opera Gala .
Performing opera choruses as part of a special concert with the Middlebury College Orchestra and alumni soloists.

2000-May-26. 2000 Commencement Concert .
Including favorite works of the choir members performed in past seasons

2000-April. Bach's music for the Lenten season .
Performing chorales alongside organ chorale-preludes performed by organist Susan Mason

2000-April. Music from 1800.
As part of Middlebury College Chamber Soloists concert, Mozart Freimason canata and New England singing master hymns.

2000-May. Bicentennial Opera Gala .
Performing opera choruses as part of a special concert with the Middlebury College Orchestra and alumni soloists.

2000-May-26. 2000 Commencement Concert .
Including favorite works of the choir members performed in past seasons

2000-April. Music from 1800.
As part of Middlebury College Chamber Soloists concert, Mozart Freimason canata and New England singing master hymns.

2000-May. Bicentennial Opera Gala .
Performing opera choruses as part of a special concert with the Middlebury College Orchestra and alumni soloists.

2000-May-26. 2000 Commencement Concert .
Including favorite works of the choir members performed in past seasons

2000-May. Bicentennial Opera Gala .
Performing opera choruses as part of a special concert with the Middlebury College Orchestra and alumni soloists.

2000-May-26. 2000 Commencement Concert .
Including favorite works of the choir members performed in past seasons

2000-May-26. 2000 Commencement Concert .
Including favorite works of the choir members performed in past seasons