Marion Chorale Performs Jan. 21

The Marion Chorale will perform at St. Peter the Fisherman Catholic Church, 407 Jackson St., Fairmont, on Sunday, Jan. 21, at 3 p.m.

Tickets will be sold at the door. Prices are $5 for adults, and $3 for seniors and children
under 12. For more information, contact Jeffrey Poland at (304) 367-4118.

The concert is being performed for the greater Fairmont community and also for an appearance at the state conference of the American Choral Directors Association. Under the direction of Jeffrey Poland, the Chorale will sing two sets of songs by America's most popular living choral composers and one set by an influential British composer of the 20th century.

The "Five Hebrew Love Songs" by Eric Whitacre were first composed in 1996 while he was a student at the Juilliard School of Music. The texts of these songs were written by Whitacre's wife-to-be, soprano Hila Plitmann, and performed that same year in Speyer, Germany. In 2001, Whitacre was commissioned to set these songs for chorus and string quartet, which is the version performed by the Chorale.

Morten Lauridsen wrote his six "Fire Songs" while inspired by the madrigals and love poems of the Italian Renaissance. It is a dramatic cycle of madrigals that illustrates many of the same techniques used by Renaissance composers like Gesualdo and Monteverdi, but in a modern way. One of the features of the cycle is a sonority found in all six songs that Lauridsen calls the "fire-chord." The harmony and poetry combine to represent music with burning passion.

One of the most significant British composers of the last century, Benjamin Britten wrote his "Five Flower Songs" in 1950 for the 25th wedding anniversary of his friends Leonard and Dorothy Elmhirst. The flowers depicted in these songs include daffodils, mallow, nightshade, henbane, nettle, primrose and broom. Britten finds clever ways to express the characteristics of the flowers and circumstances of their environment.

Founded in May 2000, the Marion Chorale is a mixed-voice auditioned community choir based in Fairmont. Its purpose is to bring cultural programming to Marion County and surrounding areas, and to enhance the quality of life through choral music which is artistically composed and performed. Ranging from 16 to 20 voices, Chorale members have all received formal musical training, many of whom are working as music educators and church musicians. The Chorale has been invited to make its second concert appearance for the West Virginia conference of the American Directors Association in Charleston on Friday evening, Jan. 26, at 8 p.m.

Singers with the Chorale are sopranos Kim Trisel, Julia Moorehead, Penny Saeler and Leigh Anne Bolyard; altos Brenda Joe, Alison Poland, Joyce McVicker, Corina King and Stormy Brotosky; tenors Bradley Tenney, Larry Keeling, Jordan Hoffmaster and Michael Simpson; basses David Callis, Robert Periello and Don Trisel.