Posts filed under Concert Chorale

by Mike Emery
pemeryuh [dot] edu
713-743-8186 

November 27, 2012, Houston

The holidays are around the corner, but the University of Houston’s Moores Concert Chorale already has reason to celebrate. On Friday, Nov. 30, the vocal ensemble will make its debut at the annual Mayor’s Holiday Celebration and Tree Lighting. Adding to the group’s festive mood on Friday is the recent news that it has been selected for the 2013 International Chamber Choir Competition in Marktoberdorf, Germany.

Choir makes its French debut and wows international audiences

The Moores School of Music Concert Chorale traveled to Tours, France at the end of May to compete in the highly-selective Florilege Vocal de Tours international chorale competition. It competed against nine choirs, including ensembles from Tokyo; Calgary, Canada; and Dublin, Ireland.

Read the rest of the University of Houston's press release here, including photos and videos from the trip!

Be sure to also check out our own photo gallery of the trip!

The Concert Chorale, under the direction of Betsy Cook Weber, has been accepted to the Florilège Vocal de Tours choral competition in France from May 27 - 29, 2011. As part of their repertoire, the Chorale will premiere David Ashley White's "I Cannot Live with You," one of two movements from The Door Ajar for a cappella mixed chorus. The Florilège Vocal de Tours accepts only nine choirs each year to participate in this very prestigious event.

Sophomore music education major and Concert Chorale member Austin Dean was recently announced as the older of two younger brothers of lead character Joseph de Rocher in Houston Grand Opera’s upcoming production of Jake Heggie and Terrence McNally’s Dead Man Walking.

Dean, a student of Moores School of Music voice professor Melanie Sonnenberg, will work alongside performers Philip Cutlip (playing convicted murderer Joseph de Rocher), Joyce DiDonato (Sister Helen Prejean), Frederica von Stade (Joseph’s mother), and MSM professor Hector Vásquez (prison warden George Benton). Leonard Foglia will serve as director for the production.

“This role looks to be the learning experience of a lifetime,” Dean said. “I feel so honored and grateful to be a part of something so massive and beautiful! The entire Moores School of Music family and voice area have been so supportive, and for that I am truly grateful. I am humbled by the opportunity to represent the Moores School of Music, as well as the University of Houston, in this exciting project!”

Dead Man Walking tells the story of Joseph de Rocher, a death row inmate convicted of murdering a teenage girl and her boyfriend. He writes his pen pal, a missionary nun named Helen, and asks her to become her spiritual advisor. Throughout the course of the opera and against the suggestions of her friends and colleagues, Helen supports Joseph as he goes through appeals, requests for pardon, and a personal struggle to confess his crime and make peace with himself, his mother, the victims’ families, and God.

Houston Grand Opera’s production of Dead Man Walking runs January 22, 2011, through February 6, 2011, at the Wortham Center. For tickets and information, visit http://www.houstongrandopera.org/tickets/calendar/view.aspx?id=1418 or call 713-228-OPERA (6737).