Coshocton Community Choir to present concert
COSHOCTON – The Coshocton Community Choir’s I’m Gonna Sing Spring Concert will be held on Sunday, April 30 at 3 p.m. at Coshocton High School’s McKinley Auditorium. Now in its 46th season, the Community Choir was organized in 1971 by its director, Charles R. Snyder, a longtime Coshocton teacher, choral director, and church musician. There are more than 200 musicians from throughout Central Ohio participating in this concert including the adult choir; The Coshocton Singers (grades four through 8), the Coshocton Youth Chorale (grades nine through 12), instrumentals Dickie Barrick and Mark Wagner on piano; and the Roscoe Brass Ensemble.
“Last year’s 45th anniversary celebration for the Community Choir, and this year’s anniversaries – the 30th for the Coshocton Singers (founded as the Coshocton Children’s Choir) and the 15th for the Coshocton Youth Chorale – made me think about the hundreds who have been part of these organizations over the years,” Snyder said. “Their love of singing – and sharing their gift of song – made me think of the old spiritual, ‘I’m Gonna Sing When the Spirit Says Sing.’ That simple phrase seemed to say it all.”
Snyder says there are always some cherished traditions in putting together the numbers for the spring concert. “The Palm Sunday hymn, ‘All Glory, Laud, and Honor’ has been our traditional processional since the Community Choir launched its first spring concerts in the early 80s, and the strains of ‘Beautiful Savior’ and Peter Lutkin’s ‘The Lord Bless You and Keep You’ have been sung by the choir and alumni at the conclusion of the spring concerts since then,” he said. “In recent years we’ve often had all three choirs join for a song, and John Rutter’s toe-tapping arrangement of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ will be exciting this year as the audience joins the three choirs on the final chorus.’
The second set of songs for the Community Choir features what Snyder calls ‘masterworks,’ songs in the ‘choral canon’ that have stood the test of time. Listeners will hear compositions by Haydn, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Ohio composer, John Ness Beck.
The concert’s theme will be obvious in Garry Cornell’s festival fanfare, ‘Sing to God a Joyful Song,’ Tchaikovsky’s ‘O Sing to God,’ K. Lee Scott’s arrangement of ‘I’m Gonna Sing,’ and the powerful finale, ‘A Song of Peace,’ which also calls for piano, brass and timpani.
The Coshocton Youth Chorale will sing ‘Simple Gifts,’ ‘To Everything There Is a Season,’ ‘Hush, Somebody’s Callin’ My Name,’ and ‘Let Me Ride.’ They will have their own concert the end of May when many other songs will be shared.
The Coshocton Singers’ portion of the program will include Jane Marshall’s ‘Psalm 98’ and Jack Best’s arrangement of the spiritual, ‘O Freedom,’ both of which were sung by the first edition of the ensemble 30 years ago. The singers will add some choreography to Clare Grundman’s ‘Zoo Illogical,’ a song with whimsical texts about five animals. At the conclusion of their set, alumni will be invited to the stage to join the current ensemble in singing ‘I’m Goin Up a Yonder,’ and Katie Moran Bart’s Blessing.’
There have been more than 800 singers in the Community Choir over the years, 732 have been in the Coshocton Singers, and 294 have sung with the Youth Chorale. In the current edition of the Community Choir, 24 have previously been in the Coshocton Singers and/or the Youth Chorale.
Current singers in the Coshocton Community Choir include a few high school students, a contingent of Muskingum University students, and adults from Coshocton County, as well as singers who commute to the Sunday evening rehearsals from Newcomerstown, Dover, Reynoldsburg, Westerville, Pataskala, Mt. Gilead, Fredericktown, Cambridge, Zanesville, Newark, Granville, and Apple Valley. The singers come from all backgrounds, vocations, and walks of life. Their zeal and enthusiasm attest to the fine results which can be generated when a group of people come together for a common cause – in this case, choral music of distinction.
In addition to its yearly Christmas Festival and spring concerts, the choir sings for occasional community celebrations, and has taken its music on the road to Dover, Newcomerstown, Columbus, Grove City, Mt. Gilead, Somerset, and Dresden. The choir has also performed twice for conferences of the Ohio Choral Directors Association, and has sung on five occasions in Hoover Auditorium as part of Lakeside Chautauqua’s prestigious concert series. On two occasions, the Community Choir has joined forces with the Southeastern Ohio Symphony Orchestra.
“This will be the 30th year that we will present the scholarship made possible by Barbara Bachert, one of our most generous benefactors,” Snyder said. “The scholarships are awarded each spring to graduating seniors who plan to continue their musical studies, and are given in honor of retired area music teachers. Fourteen of the scholarship recipients are teaching, five will be participating in the concert, and two are currently in college.”
The Coshocton Community Choir’s Spring Concert I’m Gonna Sing takes place on Sunday, April 30, at 3 p.m. at Coshocton High School’s McKinley Auditorium, located at 1205 Cambridge Road in Coshocton. Tickets for the I’m Gonna Sing concert are $10 for adults and $5 for students and are available at the door, on the choir website www.CoshoctonCommunityChoir.org or by calling Business Manager Lee Bown at (740) 622-3960.
Pre-sale tickets are also available from the following ticket outlets: In Coshocton at Marilyn’s Natural Foods, Triplitt’s Pharmacy, or Buehler’s Foodmarket; Newcomerstown at Baker’s Foods; West Lafayette at Home Loan Savings Bank; and in Roscoe Village at the Coshocton County Convention & Visitors Bureau Office.
For information about the choir and their concerts, contact the Coshocton Community Choir at (740) 623-0554, find them on Facebook and at www.CoshoctonCommunityChoir.org.
Category: Arts & Entertainment
