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Women's , girls' choir to unite
The SCSU Women's Choir and the Cantabile Girls' choir are celebrating the rich diversity in the lives of women and girls around the world tonight in a musical performance at Bethlehem Lutheran Church.
According to SCSU Women's choir conductor Mary Jo Bot, the concert, "Her Story Her Song," is not the first time the two choirs have collaborated.
"Last year we did basically the same thing but with a different name," said Bot.
"Her Story Her Song" is a concert that includes musical performances by both of the choirs interspersed with readings of poetry and prose reflecting women of the world in the past and present.
"We tried to pull together music and readings that reflect the different experiences of women and girls, and celebrate those experiences and who we are as women and girls," Bot said.
The performance also reaches out to the community by its tie into the Central Minnesota Task Force on Battered Women.
"We wanted to get involved with the Central Minnesota Task Force on Battered Women so we would make more of a connection with the community," Bot said.
Although speakers from Central Minnesota Task Force on Battered Women addressed the Women's choir and the Cantabile Girls' choir, they have no part in the actual performance.
"I hope that people get an awareness for what this concert is for," said senior Women's Choir member and computer science major Katie O'Brien. "They won't get it directly because no one representing the shelter will be speaking, but I hope through the songs telling the story of the problems and joys of women's lives, it still comes across."
The Women's Choir, which provides any female students with the opportunity to study music and perform distinctive literature for women's voices, will be singing seven songs, in a variety of styles and languages.
"The repertoire will include a variety of songs: a Navajo prayer, a Hawaiian piece, Latin American music, regular classical songs, folk songs and a Hebrew piece," Bot said.
The two choirs of women and girls will unite in song to open and close the performance.
"We sing the first and the last songs together," O' Brien said. "We will stand side by side and really fill up the whole church. It is really neat to hear the different sounds intermixed."
Several SCSU faculty members will also be participating in the event.
"Melissa Krause will play the flute, Marcelyn Smale will play the organ and do the readings and Catherine Verrilli will sing," Bot said.
Jane Oxton will be conducting the Cantabile Girls' choir, which is part of the SCSU music department's preparatory program for girls in grades 6-9.
According to Bot, the Women's Choir has been preparing all semester for this performance and is expecting a turnout of several hundred people tonight at Bethlehem Lutheran Church where "Her Story Her Song" will begin at 7 p.m. The concert is free, said Bot, but donation baskets will be available to fundraise for the Central Minnesota Task Force of Battered Women.
"Come and listen because this is different. It is not your normal choir concert," O'Brien said.
Kristen J. Kubisiak can be reached at: [email protected]
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