DePauw Chamber Singers Perform Sunday in Send-Off for Winter Term Tour of France

January 6, 2016

The DePauw University Chamber Singers will perform at Music on the Square in Greencastle Sunday afternoon on the eve of their 2016 Winter Term tour of France.  The local send-off show begins at 3 p.m. and is presented free of admission charge and is open to all.

Kristina Boerger, director of choirs, will present the group in seven performances while touring France Jan. 11-20, including an invited concert in the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Two of the locations in which the DePauw students will be singing are UNESCO World Heritage sites -- the Chartres Cathedral (Jan. 16) and Notre Dame Cathedral (Jan. 18).

Among other stops along the tour, the Chamber Singers will also visit and perform at the Cathedral in Rouen (Jan. 12) -- renowned since the Middle Ages for its music, fine organ, noted choir and choir school -- and they will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the American Cemetery on Normandy beach at Colleville-sur-Mer (Jan. 13).

Program highlights include music by Perotin written in the 13th century for the Notre Dame cathedral choir, as well as a new piece based on Perotin by Jonathan David and composed especially for this tour.

David, an American composer currently living and working in Chapel Hill, N.C., has traveled to Greencastle this week to rehearse with the ensemble. His "All My Heart This Night Rejoices" was recently named the winning work in the New England Carol Contest, and he has received commissions from the New York Treble Singers, Duke University, and the Manhattan Wind Ensemble, among others.

"Among the delights we will be singing is Jonathan's 'Sederunt: A Perotin Caprice,' which the composer himself will present at the world premiere performance in Greencastle," says Boerger. "Also joining us Sunday at Music on the Square will be DePauw faculty member Anne Harris, a specialist in the art and architecture of Medieval France, who will present images of the structures and iconography related to our repertoire."

"It's like a dream tour for singers," sophomore soprano Marin Tack said. "Performing a work written in the 13th century for the Notre Dame choir -- in Notre Dame -- and then premiering a piece there inspired by it."