Convocation Choral Workshop

Welcome

You are welcome to join in singing for Convocation 2025 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.

Schedule and Requirements

Join the Workshop rehearsals as follows - please attend as much as you can. You must attend at least one to sing on Sunday afternoon.

All take place in the College Chapel unless noted below.

Friday, September 5, 3:00-4:30 PM College Chapel

Saturday, September 6, 4:30-6:00 PM 2:00-4:30 PM College Chapel

Sunday, September 7:

• 12:00-1:30 PM rehearsal
• 4:00 PM Service: arrive by 3:45. 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 (specific song TBD)

Typically performed with singers, dancers, and an instrumental ensemble of faculty, students, and alumni, this piece serves as the formal processional of College administration and staff.

Gamaliel Painter’s Cane

We sing the famous college song with text written by E. Pruda Wiley, Class of 1912.

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). The text is by Margaret Dounce Dale ‘43 and Dorothy Hood Bittman ‘43.

Contact

Interested in choral singing at Middlebury? Consider auditioning for the College Choir! Audition information is posted at go/choralauditions (go.middlebury.edu/choralauditions)