The image is borrowed from a service for someone whose life was like a thread that appeared and disappeared from view, but who remained part of us. The different choirs and ensembles seem to be separate strings tying their own singers together, but each is also a thread in a larger cloth. Here are singers singing in both church and chorale; there is the college choir bringing both in to do a larger work; there and there are college faculty in or leading a church choir, while here are singers from different churches gathered to sing.
The string of our local college choirs doing year’s end music begins with Fauré and Mozart on Friday, and appears to end with Orff in early June. This weekend we have Pomona College and University of La Verne choirs in concert, and a church visit from APU to Rancho Cucamonga. In fact, this Sunday will be a particularly good day to catch a choir singing, with more people singing here than any day since Easter.
The ties that bind us will be on display this Sunday and next. In Upland, first, will be church choirs and others, including the Repertory Opera Company, in ‘Bread On The Waters,’ a benefit at the First UMC of Upland in support of local hunger relief work. The choirs and ensembles involved hail from Chino, Rancho Cucamonga, Ontario, Upland and Pomona. Exactly a week later some of these same singers will join a hundred voice choir in Claremont, as the Pilgrim Chorale and guests from both church and chorale join in “Gather Up the Years,” a concert celebrating the centennial of Pilgrim Place. The singers at this event will come from Claremont, Pomona, La Verne, Upland and San Marino.
The last two Thursdays in April, the 23rd and the 30th, offer more of the work of local college choirs, but on a smaller scale. The Claremont Chamber Choir will be first, on 23 April, and then the Pomona College Glee Club will close out April, chorally speaking, on 30 April, both times in Claremont. Information on all of these events can be found below.
When and where
(for locations follow the links)
Friday, 17 April
8:00 p.m., Pomona College Choir and Pomona College Orchestra, Fauré: Pavane, Fauré: Les Djinns, Mozart Mass in C Minor, Claremont
Sunday, 19 April
3:00 p.m., Pomona College Choir and Pomona College Orchestra, Fauré: Pavane, Fauré: Les Djinns, Mozart Mass in C Minor, Claremont
3:30 p.m., At First United Methodist Church, Upland, Multiple ensembles, Bread On The Waters, benefit concert, Upland
6:00 p.m., University of La Verne All Ensembles Concert, La Verne
6:00 p.m., Azusa Pacific University Choir and Orchestra, Flipside Church, Rancho Cucamonga
Thursday, 23 April
8:00 p.m., The Claremont Chamber Choir, Folksongs and madrigals, Claremont
Sunday, 26 April
3:30 p.m., The Pilgrim Chorale, Winsor Brass & guests, “Gather Up the Years,” Claremont
Thursday, 30 April
8:00 p.m., Pomona College Glee Club, “Choral music from across the centuries,” Claremont