Choral Workshop
Sing for Convocation!
Welcome
You are welcome to join in singing for Convocation 2024 with the Choral Workshop! The Convocation opens the academic year and formally welcomes new students to Middlebury. No audition is required and all students, incoming and returning, are welcome to sing. Members of the College Choir host the workshop and alumni and faculty instrumentalists augment the singing.
To sign up, please follow this link to a brief Google form.
Schedule and Requirements
Join the Workshop rehearsals as follows:
Friday, September 6, 2:00-3:00 PM MAC 221 (optional/if possible)
Saturday, September 7, NEW: 4:30-6:00 PM MAC 110 (Mahaney Arts Center, 1st floor, dance studio - sit in the audience seats, enter from lobby side!) 2:00-4:30 PM Chapel
Sunday, September 8, 2:00-3:30 PM Chapel (if possible); 4:00 PM service (dress is very nice/appropriate to a major college function). New students please join us in the Chapel up front (chancel) via the back door as soon as possible.
Advance preparation with material below is also important, as there is limited rehearsal time for this formal, highly significant College event.
Repertoire
Please see preparation audio/music excerpts here or linked below!
Welcome Dance Song
Performed with singers, dancers, and an instrumental ensemble of faculty, students, and alumni, this piece serves as the opening music of the Convocation. There are “vocables”/syllables for singing, but no text per se. The piece comprises three main melodic phrases, and is performed canonically and partially improvised by the instrumental ensemble. The piece needs to fit the moment, so the structure may change and each performance is always slightly different.
Tell Me Where Is Fancy Bred
The text from Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is a song advising that truth is found deeper than superficial impression. We adapt Matthew Harris’s a cappella setting for a neo-Baroque ensemble of singers and instrumentalists. You may sing a part of the polyphony, or you may join one of the two main melodic parts shared here. Like the first piece, there is a call and answer (“reply”) character to this melody.
Walls of Ivy
We will lead the singing of the Alma Mater, Walls of Ivy, sung to the tune Cwm Rhondda by Welsh composer John Hughes (a fairly popular Welsh hymn tune in its day).
Contact
Interested in choral singing at Middlebury? Consider auditioning for the College Choir! Audition information is posted at go/choralauditions (go.middlebury.edu/choralauditions)