W&L Presents Fall Choral Concert Oct. 26 The performance marks the first public choral concert on campus since March 2020.

By Erica Turman
October 13, 2021

Washington and Lee University will kick off its choral season with the Fall Choral Concert on Tuesday, Oct. 26, at 8 p.m. in Wilson Concert Hall. This performance marks the first public choral concert on campus since March 2020.

Along with the acclaimed University Singers, the event will feature Cantatrici, the treble choir and the W&L Glee Club — a Lexington tradition since the 19th century. Tickets are free but required and are available at https://my.wlu.edu/lenfest-center/fall-choral-concert my.wlu.edu/lenfest-center/fall-choral-concert. Masks are required.

Lacey R. Lynch, the new conductor of Cantatrici, will make her Lexington debut with the ensemble. Shane Lynch, conductor of the University Singers and the Glee Club and Music Department head, will join Lacey in her debut as the groups delight in a musical journey ranging from the Boyz II Men classic “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” to the fun and fanciful Slovenian wedding celebration “Ta Na Solbici.”

The University Singers are noted for their excellence, with peer-reviewed performance acceptances from the American Choral Directors Association, the 16th International Choral Competition Gallus-Maribor, the Cork International Choir Festival, the City of Derry International Choir Festival, the Virginia Music Educators Association, Carnegie Hall, the Academy of Music, the National Cathedral and many other top venues.

This year, the ensemble will be featured in a tour of Ireland in April 2022, with concerts in the Guildhall in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, as well as a shared concert with the acclaimed Choir of the Year winner New Dublin Voices.

The concert will open with Arianne Abela’s “Rise,” a 2017 work written for the Justice Choir of Detroit. The first half of the program will close with a trip to the ethereal, with a performance of Eric Whitacre’s “Sleep” by the combined forces of Cantatrici and the Glee Club followed by Ola Gjeilo’s “Tundra” by Cantatrici, which will utilize full lighting and mist effects to create a Norwegian landscape in Wilson Hall.

The University Singers will take the stage following intermission, opening with the triumphant first movement of Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Singet dem Herrn.” Following a work by Rheinberger, the University Singers will then perform the live world debut of Santiago Veros’ “Galaxias.” Veros, an Argentinian composer of great renown, will be in Lexington for a weeklong residency with the W&L community in early November.

After a brief preview of the upcoming Ireland tour literature, the performance will shift to the triumphant “Ta Na Solbici,” a stomping and clapping celebration befitting a return to live concerts at W&L for the Lexington community. Finally, the show will close with W&L’s traditional favorite, James Erb’s arrangement of “Shenandoah.”