The Chorale’s first performance was like walking into a dream.
The sound of humming echoed throughout the Euler Atrium. Singers, all dressed in black formal attire, enveloped the audience in a dreamy room. The first three songs resonated slowly and peacefully until, suddenly, the men started shouting, in Latin, “chain, harass, murder,” evoking imagery of Saul persecuting Christians.
“It's super, super harsh and aggressive,” Klara Becker, a senior music major, said. “It's like whiplash a little bit.”
The pure power of listening to 60 singers is an out-of-body experience that melts something inside of you, Mark Cosgrove, a sophomore vocal performance major, said. It was a gift unlike any other concert.
The Chorale and Sounds had six weeks to learn 15 pieces of music.
The Chorale memorizes all their music, which is unique, as many college choirs do not do that, Cosgrove said. Reed Spencer, the department co-chair, associate professor of music and choral ensembles director, requires memorization because he believes no one can sing the music until they know the music.
“That involves students practicing really hard outside of our rehearsal time to get things memorized,” Spencer said. “We also have a system that I call ‘lotteries,’ where students have to stand up and sing their part, one on a part, memorized, which is how we get it to that level that fast.”
It is all preparation to bring people into another form of worship, teaching people that there are many ways to worship God, Spencer said.
The concert on Oct. 18 featured songs centered around the theme “Dreams and Visions,” a profound way to worship through excellence and hard work in performance, Spencer said.
“I was considering the role of imagination in the life of a Christian and the way that, when we have dreams or visions, we're in some ways imagining a world that doesn't exist, and how important that is to be able to look at a world that's struggling and imagine something better,” Spencer said.
These things that we want and use our imagination for happen because of a dream, vision or desire we have, Becker said.
We need people to see that things can be better than they are right now, she said. We need people to have the imagination and the creativity to further glorify the Lord and to further make use of the gifts that He has given us, to grow in a way that is honoring to him.
“I'm thinking about the song ‘Prayer,’” Becker said. “The lyrics are, ‘help me spread your fragrance wherever I go and when they look up let them see You in me.’ If we were without dreams and visions, I think we would be really stagnant.”
She was blessed to rehearse the song and turn it into a prayer for her own life, Becker said.
The concert featured pieces about Martin Luther King Jr., Ezekiel and John the Revelator, as well as “Alice in Wonderland” and Leonardo Davinci.
“Leonardo Dreams of His Flying Machine” by Eric Whitacre captured Leonardo's dream to fly through visuals on a projection, the sounds of wind noises and the flowing melody of the harmonies.
The piece takes off, Spencer said, and you feel the wind blowing and Leonardo flying through the air with all these different sounds.
“I truly believe that you can find Christ in music,” Cosgrove said. “When we're singing a song like the 'Lobster Quadrille,' which is from “Alice in Wonderland,” and there’s no mention of God whatsoever, how can I still find Christ in that?
Scripture holds these amazing promises of the new heaven, Becker said, where every tear will be wiped away and everything will be perfect.
The church needs to hold desperately to the vision of heaven, she said.
“That's how we're ending the concert,” Becker said. “It's going to be ending on a high note, just filling people with hope and anticipation of the coming Kingdom.”
The level of excellence and musicality that the Chorale gets to is incredible, Cosgrove said.
Spencer hopes people find a sense of magic and whimsical fun while also holding on to hope and knowledge that darkness is not all there is.
“When we're working hard on these weeks that we have a lottery every day, and I'm in the practice room late at night, getting prepared,” Cosgrove said, “I'm doing it because I know my work is worship and that, in the end, all that work will turn into a beautiful gift that we can give to those who choose to listen.”
