Saddleback’s Choir performs classic chorals
Saddleback’s Music Department presented the Chamber Music for Choir on Tuesday November 20. The show was performed by the Saddleback’s Women’s Camerata along with the Saddleback College Choir inside the McKinney Theatre.
The show consisted of music originally composed by British choral composers Benjamin Britten, John Rutter and American composer Randall Thomas.
Conductor Dr. Scott Farthing, Chair of the Music Department, thanked the audience for their presence and acknowledged that the Thanksgiving week holiday had made it difficult for many to attend the show.
The choir opened the show with Britten’s Ceremony of Carols which was followed with Thomas’s The Place of the Blest.
The Camerata Choir sang with grace as they created somber moments to conveying feelings of victory when interpreting Thomas’s chorals before the intermission.
After the intermission, the Women’s Camereta were joined by the Saddleback Choir to finish of the night with Rutter’s Magnificant.
Magnificant was an immense choral that filled the room with a range of emotions from nostalgia to the feeling of a thunderous of triumph.
Soprano Soloist, Melissa McIntosh Landis performed in the several of Magnificant’s pieces. Her operatic singing showcased the level of skill and talent of the music program in Saddleback.
Camareta member Vera Lugo, 20, music, who performed a solo for one of the chorals in Ceremony of Carols, thought the turnout was great.
“It was bigger than expected. I think we really got a good reception based on the fact its classical music and most people don’t go for that,” she said.
After the show ended, Dr. Farthing complemented the work of the student choral performers noting their exceptional performance.
“I’m very pleased with the choir. They have worked very hard and I couldn’t ask of them anymore.”
The Saddleback Choir’s next performance will be A Feats of Lights, Saturday, Dec. 1 at 2 p.m and 5 p.m in the McKinney Theatre.