'Hallowed Sounds' concert features seasonal music

KALAMAZOO—Three of Western Michigan University’s choral ensembles—University Chorale, Collegiate Singers and Cantus Femina—will present a concert of humorous, eerie, mystifying and enchanting Halloween and All Saints' Day repertoire at 2 and 5 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 28, at the Dalton Center Recital Hall.

The free concert, “Hallowed Sounds: A Choral Showcase,” will feature works by Knut Nystedt, Alice Parker, Gyorgy Orban, Robert Schumann, Juris Karlsons, Arne Mellnäs, Einojuhani Rautavaara and Z. Randall Stroope.

Conducted by Kimberly Dunn Adams, the show opens with the Grand Chorus singing “O Fortuna” from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. The centerpiece of the program will be Hugo Distler’s “Dance of Death,” sung by University Chorale and featuring community and WMU faculty members in dramatic speaking roles. “Dance of Death,” from Distler’s Geistliche Chormusik, Opus 12, is a motet for All Saint’s Sunday. Most accurately described as a choral drama, this setting alternates short choral statements with spoken dialogues. Soulful flute solos are interspersed throughout to provide thematic unity and time for meditation.

For more information, contact the School of Music at (269) 387-4667 or wmich.edu/music.