Last Friday, Lawrence University Choirs performed their annual Winter Term concert. Viking Chorale, Concert Choir and Cantala all did a great job in their performances. I had a total blast watching the performance.
Assistant Professor of Music and Choral Studies Dr. Shannon Gravelle (director of Viking Chorale and Concert Choir) had her choirs perform pieces with themes of hope. For example, Viking Chorale sang “Bamthatha,” a South African freedom song. Concert Choir also premiered two songs by Lawrence alum Alexander Johnson ‘12, “Winds of May” and “The Bat,” which was incredible. It is so cool to see Lawrence alumni still making an impact at this school.
The grand finale was saved for Cantala, where Professor of Music and Choral Studies Dr. Phillip Swan premiered “Lessons from an Unexpected Journey.” Swan wanted to combine choir and theater in order to tell a personal story regarding struggling through the unexpected. Cantala singer junior Megan Eisenstein said, “It felt very different embodying the songs as opposed to just singing them […] it definitely made the experience much more special.” When asked to describe how the performance related to her, Eisenstein said, “The difficulties that arise can be met with resilience, love and joy and teach us so many things we would not have known otherwise.” I absolutely agree. Throughout the seven songs performed, the story evolved to include the following themes: faith, big dreams, ecstatic joy, confusion/processing the chaos, difficulty/digging deep, moving forward and, finally, legacy.
As previously mentioned, there were elements of theater thrown into the performance. Dean of the Conservatory of Music Brian Pertl came on stage with a singing bowl, members of the choir would move all around the stage and there were even dancers during the fourth piece, “Singkap Siaga” by Tracy Wong. Eisenstein said, “It encouraged me to work harder than I ever have before for a concert, connecting blocking and movement with perfecting each song vocally and finding meaning in it all.”
When asked what her favorite piece was, Eisenstein replied “I loved ‘Come Alive’ from ‘The Greatest Showman’! The song itself is very fun, but for me, the true joy from it came when we added choreography and featured groups of singers dancing together! We all encouraged and uplifted each other!”
Overall, I had a great job at the choir concert. I loved how Dr. Gravelle chose pieces with themes of hope and it was great to see Dr. Swan premiere a work that is clearly very important and personal to him.