Ninety voices from the College and
local communities singing together
Love to sing? Join us!
The College-Community Chorus comprises Middlebury College students, staff and faculty, and singers from towns and villages throughout Addison County and across the lake in New York State. The Chorus is open to all singers (high school age and up) without audition. We assume you can follow along a musical score and sing a melody accurately.
Regular rehearsals: Sunday / Tuesday evenings,
7-8:30pm, Mead Chapel
2008/2009 season
Sunday, November 23, 2008, 3:00 pm
Sing Creation's Music On
(see description below)
A Thanksgiving Celebration
Mead Chapel, Middlebury College
Just announced: an additional performance
Saturday, November 22, 7:00 pm
Burlington First United Methodist Church
downtown at the corner of S. Winooski & Buell St.
Sunday, December 21, 2008, 2:00 pm
Annual Messiah Sing
at the Middlebury Congregational Church
Sunday, May 10, 2009, 3:00 pm
A Bouquet of Songs
Mead Chapel, Middlebury College
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Our Thanksgiving 2008 program centers on the theme of the glory of the world around us, and hope for peace in our world.
We open the program with The Heavens are Telling, a delightful selection from The Creation by Franz Joseph Haydn depicting the earth in all its glory.
We offer three contrasting settings of the traditional Latin chorus Sanctus ("Holy, holy, holy... heaven and earth are full of thy glory") by German composer Franz Schubert, French composer Gabriel Fauré, and contemporary Swedish composer Jan Sandström.
The program features contemplative music by contemporary American composers, including Take Peace by Middlebury College alumna Christina Whitten; a setting of the Quaker poem "O Brother Man" entitled The Tree of Peace by Vermont composer Gwyneth Walker; as well Elaine Broad-Ginsberg's setting of the Hebrew text Oseh Shalom. We also sing a newly written poem The Road Home, set to a traditional American hymn tune by Minnesota composer Stephen Paulus.
Hymns, songs and psalms of thanksgiving include A Hymn for America, also by Stephen Paulus; Alleluia by Randall Thompson; and Jubilate Deo ("O be joyful in the Lord all ye lands") by Felix Mendelssohn.
We close the program lifting our voices in song, with Gwyneth Walker's Let Music Fill the Air and an energizing gospel arrangement by African American composer-conductor Jeffery Ames of Let Everything That Hath Breath.
The Chorus is conducted by Jeff Rehbach, now in his ninth season leading the group, and accompanied by George Matthew, Jr., who also serves as carillonneur of Middlebury College.
For more information, please contact Jeff Rehbach at 443-5811 rehbach @ middlebury.edu or Mary Longey, Chorus Manager, at 236-7933. 
The Chorus also sponsors the annual Middlebury Messiah Sing , held each December, open to all singers and players for a delightful afternoon of community music making.
The origins of the Community Chorus date back more than 150 years when the Middlebury Musical Institute, a choral group, was established. Today the Chorus is open to all singers, without audition, including members of the local community and students, faculty, and staff of the College. We count on participants to carry a tune accurately and to follow along a musical score, and we pledge to foster excellent musicianship through our rehearsals and performances. Recent concerts have included works of Brahms, Faure, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Randall Thompson, Jean Berger, John Rutter, George Gershwin, and Morten Lauridsen.The Chorus is directed by Jeff Rehbach, and accompanied by George Matthew, Jr, who is also is the College's distinguished master carillonneur.
All photos on the College Community Chorus pages
©Ernest R. Longey and used with permission