PARSIPPANY — Brianne Partington will tour Pennsylvania and New York with Lebanon Valley College’s Concert Choir. Partington, a graduate of Parsippany Hills High School, is pursuing a bachelor of arts in music business at The Valley.
The theme for the 2018 LVC Concert Choir tour is “Welcome to the Family,” and includes music from around the world that celebrates the bonds of family that we forge with each other. The core of the program features works about mothers and fathers, such as an arrangement of Lars Jansson’s Latin-jazz work, To The Mothers of Brazil; Matthew Erpelding’s setting of Rudyard Kipling’s poem of fatherly advice in If-; Ilyas Iliya’s haunting setting of the Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father”) in Aramaic; a new hymn to the Holy Mother in Ola Gjeilo’s Second Eve; and Papa Loko, a Haitian prayer and celebration to the Vudou spirit of healing and all things green.
The program also celebrates the newest additions to our families, as in Stacey Gibb’s spiritual, Ain’t That a-Rockin’, and Carol Barnett’s adorable arrangement of Malcolm Dalglish’s Little Potato. Families often change, and are represented in the program by pieces like Kyla Vuotti Uutta Kuuta, a Finnish wedding song; and Only in Sleep, a reflection on childhood memories in our old age.
Perhaps most importantly, the entire program is rounded out with other works that celebrate our non-blood families-those we create for ourselves in our daily lives, like our friends, our coworkers, our classmates, and in our case, those with whom we have the privilege to sing.
The Lebanon Valley College Concert Choir is one of two auditioned mixed choral ensembles at LVC. Concert Choir has toured each year, primarily in the Northeast, since 1936. In addition, the choir has been heard on more than 30 national radio broadcasts including National Radio Pulpit and Great Choirs in America. The choir has performed with the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra and holds standing invitations to appear at the National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., and the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, New York City.
Other non-tour appearances have included the Lighting of the National Christmas Tree, the Festival of Lights at the Washington, D.C. Temple Visitor’s Center, performing with the General Conference of the United Methodist Church, and appearances before the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association and the Music Educators National Conference Eastern Division Convention in Washington, D.C.
The choir has toured internationally to Eastern Europe (1973), Great Britain (1999), Italy (2001), Central Europe: the Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary (2007), and Norway and Denmark (2011.)
82nd Annual LVC Concert Choir Spring Tour Itinerary
Sunday, March 18
CONCERT – 3:30 p.m. at Pine Street Presbyterian Church
310 North 3rd Street – Harrisburg, PA 17101
Friday, March 23
MORNING WORKSHOPS with choirs at Conrad-Weiser High School
AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS with choirs at Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Fine Arts
CONCERT – 7:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church
2344 Center Street – Bethlehem, PA 18017
Featuring guest performers from Lehigh Valley Charter High School for the Fine Arts
Saturday, March 24
AFTERNOON WORKSHOPS with choirs at Susquehannock High School
CONCERT – 7:30 p.m. at St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church
140 North Beaver Street – York, PA 17401
Featuring guest performers from Susquehannock High School
Sunday, March 25
CONCERT – 3:00 p.m. at Miller Chapel Lebanon Valley College
101 N. College Avenue – Annville, PA 17003
Concerts are free admission and open to the public. A free-will offering will be collected at each concert to benefit local charities.
Lebanon Valley College is a private, coeducational college founded in 1866 and dedicated to the liberal arts. The College offers 41 undergraduate majors plus self-designed majors and a range of minors, concentrations, and pre-professional options, as well as graduate degree programs in athletic training, business administration, music education, physical therapy, science in STEM education, and speech-language pathology.
The College has 1,624 full-time undergraduate students and 118 full-time faculty. Students can choose from more than 95 clubs and organizations, and 19 study abroad programs. LVC awards generous academic scholarships to those whose high school records demonstrate a commitment to challenge and achievement. Learn more click here.
Annville is 15 minutes east of Hershey and 35 minutes east of Harrisburg; Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Baltimore are within two hours.
