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MSU Chorale June 13 concert launches European tour
June 02, 2006 -- from MSU News Service
Bozeman -- The Montana State University Chorale will launch a performance tour of Central Europe with a performance at 7 p.m. Tuesday, June 13, at Bozeman's Holy Rosary Church.
The performance is free and open to the public. A free-will offering will be taken to help defray the travel expenses of the 40-member choir.
Directed by Lowell Hickman, MSU professor of music, the Chorale will tour and perform in Berlin, Leipzig, Prague, Vienna and Budapest from June 14-26. The Chorale will perform as part of the 2006 American Celebration of Music in both Germany and Austria, performing almost exclusively in churches in Central Europe. Other performance venues during the group's tour include Prague's historic St. Nicholas Church as well as Budapest's Gothic Matthais Church.
The Chorale's concert program includes eight sacred selections from composers ranging from Brahms to Whitacre. The second half of the program features six American spirituals and folk songs "that are very popular with European audiences," Hickman said.
Hickman said the Chorale tours and performs in Europe about every third year, which he believes is important to the students' cultural, historical and musical education.
"Some of the (tour) experiences are life changing for them," Hickman said. "They understand more fully and completely about what they have studied when they sing at Karlskirche (Vienna's historic Baroque cathedral), for instance.
"The music is brought to life and you can literally see a light go on in their eyes. They particularly understand more about music history, and how a piece of music was composed for a specific space."
Hickman said the students pay their own travel expenses for the European tour, which is one of several travel and study experiences offered by the MSU Department of Music.
The MSU Chorale also performed at this spring's Northwest Division Convention of the American Choral Director's Association in Portland, Ore. The Chorale was one of 25 choral ensembles invited to perform at the convention and the only ensemble from Montana.
A photo of the MSU Chorale can be downloaded at: http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/hires.php?img=1319&ArtID=3395
Contact: Lowell Hickman (406) 994-5755 or lhickman@montana
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