Centenary's Camerata ensemble sets spring concert
SHREVEPORT, LA — Centenary's Camerata choral ensemble will musically explore spiritual questions in its final performance of the year on Saturday, April 2 at 7:30 p.m. in Anderson Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public.
"We have spent this academic year exploring the notion of 'truth' via our music – what is music, why is it important to humanity, how is music an intellectual, spiritual, and emotional pursuit, as opposed to mere entertainment?," says Dr. Cory Wikan, Visiting Assistant Professor of Music and director of Camerata. "Our spring concert was designed to explore some of life's deeper questions and perhaps their concomitant answers via music."
The April 2 concert features works by American composers Thomas LaVoy and Rollo Dilworth as well as standard choral works by Randall Thompson and Felix Mendelssohn, all chosen by Wikan to express and expand the questioning theme.
"LaVoy's exquisite Songs of the Questioner (poetry by Richard le Gallienne) affords performers and listeners alike the opportunity to explore some of life's deeper questions through poetry and music," explains Wikan. "We continue our questioning with Paulus's The Road Home and offer possible answers with Paul Christiansen's I Heard A Great Voice, Thompson's Alleluia, and a few gospel arrangements by Rollo Dilworth. The challenge for us is not simply singing the right notes at the right time, but delivering them with a collective spirit that speaks to the audience."
Camerata, founded in 1983, is the primary academic choral ensemble of the Hurley School of Music. This group is dedicated to quality artistic performances of choral repertoire from all historical periods. Members are primarily voice majors, though membership is open to all Centenary students by audition.