The University of Mississippi Choral Department will hold its fall concert Thursday in the North Oxford Baptist Church at 7:30 p.m. The UM Choral Department is composed of five groups and nearly 150 students total. These groups include women’s glee, men’s glee, concert singers, women’s ensemble and university chorus. Each group will perform in Thursday’s concert.
“Most of the students who participate in one of the five choirs here at Ole Miss sang in their high school programs, and so they come with previous experience,” said Don Trott, main choir director and leader of concert singers and men’s glee. “What we offer here at Ole Miss is an opportunity to expand that experience with a more advanced choice of repertoire, a more developed choral tone. Our concert is an example of just that – repertoire is varied and sung with a mature sound. The student singers enjoy the challenge of the programming and the aesthetic fulfillment.”
North Oxford Baptist Church will host the UM Choral Department in the fall and spring concerts as well as a possible production around Christmas.
“If an on-campus organization (i.e. a sorority) needs to practice a skit for a week, we can accommodate them in family life center,” said Peggy Sneed, ministry assistant at North Oxford Baptist Church. “We try to accommodate whatever we can for the university.”
To prepare for the production, the church provides a sound technician and allows the group to rehearse a week before the concert.
“The students are really good not to put us out; they are really accommodating and conscious of our space,” Sneed said.
Graduate student Hannah Gadd works under Debra Spurgeon, who is in charge of women’s glee and women’s ensemble. As a graduate student, Gadd does the backstage work, conducts daily tasks, works with all of the UM choral groups and does anything and everything the conductors ask of her, so their jobs can run as smoothly as possible.
Her involvement started with the choral department as a freshman biology major and she later went on to change her major to music education. She was in both the women’s glee and concert singers groups and graduated in 2013 but is able to remain in the groups as a graduate. Gadd will have the privilege of conducting the national anthem at the homecoming football game this year.
“I got to do a lot of things with choir that I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise,” Gadd said. “For instance, if I had gone without the choir to Europe, I wouldn’t have gotten to sing in several grand cathedrals and explore all the choir history all over Europe.”
Gadd said many non-choral students think choir only sings traditional music and hymns.
“My favorite is spiritual music. ‘Tykus Tykus,’ is a fun spiritual with musical elements of noise,” Gadd said. “Another favorite of mine is when Eriks Esenvalds comes. He worked with our choirs, and we gave a performance at the end of the week. The piece was about the celestial body that is the universe, and we played with water pitch filled wine glasses.”
Gadd arranged a rendition of “This Little Light of Mine” for women’s ensemble that incorporates choreography, snaps and a little bit of movement with four soloists scattered throughout the piece.
Women’s ensemble, the group she works with, will perform a 21st century, modern piece. Gadd said the performance is “so different that it really blows your hair back.”
Women’s glee will sing a piece with a trumpet player and a poem piece based off of “Song of Solomon.”
“It’s going to be a fun time for choral music and that’s what music at Ole Miss is all about; a lot of people don’t know that we have so many choirs and so many ways to get involved,” Gadd said. “I think choral music is real open to everyone who wants to sing. All of our groups meet three days a week, and they are really hard workers and have done great this semester. I’m really proud.”
The fall concert will be $10 for adults and $8 for students.
