The Geneseo Men’s Choir (pictured above) performed alongside the Spectrum Singers and the Geneseo Chamber Singers on March 4 in the Central Presbyterian Church. Some of the pieces sung by the groups included “Wade in the Watah” by Ysaye Barnwell and “The Water is Wide,” a piece arranged by history and adolescent education double major senior Noah Chichester. (Sophie Yeomans/Asst. Copy Editor)
The Central Presbyterian Church on Center Street has a high arching ceiling, which allows numerous voices chorusing at once to reverberate over the heads of the audience, bouncing off the walls and into the ears of observers.
The Geneseo Department of Music held a mid-winter choral concert in the church on March 4. It included the Spectrum Singers, the Geneseo Men’s Choir and the Geneseo Chamber Singers.
The Spectrum Singers, directed by adjunct professor of music Amy Cochrane, sang three pieces. The first piece was “Le Tre Grazie a Venere (Giulio Strozzi)” by Barbara Strozzi.
Cochrane enjoyed the specific piece’s style and the singers’ performance of this work.
“I love the text and the playfulness of the Strozzi,” Cochrane said. “There were these sections that the women had to sing really quickly called coloraturas, and I used some of the techniques that I used when I was younger—to learn patterns of coloraturas—to get them to learn those sections. I wanted to help them make it flow and be articulate at the same time, and I think that worked well.”
Following the second piece, Benjamin Britten’s “Missa Brevis,” the third piece was “The Snow,” by Edward Elgar. Cochrane was inspired to choose “The Snow” because of her own love of the cold and the recent Geneseo weather.
After the Spectrum Singers, the Geneseo Men’s Choir—directed by Chair of the Department of Music and Director of Choral Activities Gerard Floriano—performed. Floriano sang four songs, including a piece arranged by history and adolescent education double major senior Noah Chichester called, “The Water is Wide.”
Chichester assumed the role of conductor for “The Water is Wide,”s returning afterward to sing the remaining pieces with his peers.
“I had heard the song ‘Water is Wide’ before several times. It’s a pretty standard tune,” Chichester said. “One of the most famous performances is tenor and solo piano, so I had that kind of sound in my head, but I wanted to do it for men’s choir with soloists.”
After that, the choir performed “Adoramus te Christe” by Giovanni Pierluigi and “Danny Boy,” arranged by Michael Cox.
The Geneseo Chamber Singers closed the concert by performing six more pieces, including “Cloudburst” by Eric Whitacre, which was a crowd favorite for its musical expression of a thunderstorm. Chichester enjoyed performing and listening to the piece.
“I really appreciated the different tones and timbres that we were able to create in that piece,” he said. “Whitacre has a really unique approach to dissonance in music. The way that he’ll create cluster chords—pitches that are so closely grouped together—doesn’t sound dissonant at all. That’s the great thing about his music.”
To end the concert, the Chamber singers performed “Sure on this Shining Night” by Morten Lauridsen, “The Pasture” by Randall Stroope and “Wade in the Watah” by Ysaye Barnwell.
Floriano was pleased with the results of the concert.
“The chamber singers especially, I think we have a sound that is kind of our own,” he said. “We try and foster that sound and nurture it so as we go through the course of the year we get closer and closer to what the ideal sound is. Now, toward the end of this year, we’re pretty close to that ideal.”
The next performance from the Department of Music will be the Geneseo Wind Ensemble on Friday March 23 at 8 p.m. in Wadsworth Auditorium.