After a two-year hiatus, one of this area’s premier musical organizations will again share its talents with an audience. That musical organization is the Williamsport Civic Chorus.
“One of the aspects of this concert that’s kind of special is that we’ve been waiting a long time to perform it,” Tina Swisher, Director of Publicity for the Williamsport Civic Chorus, told Webb Weekly. “Although it’s not our first post-COVID concert (that was this past Christmas), it’s the one we’ve anticipated the most — we began rehearsing in January 2020 and stopped meeting that March because of the pandemic. It’s been a long two years, and we’re finally going to perform this glorious music!”
The Civic Chorus will be performing Ola Gjeilo’s Sunrise Mass and The Lake Isle (inspired by Keats’ The Lake Isle of Innisfree), both with orchestra, as well as his Ubi Caritas and The Rose.
According to Swisher, Ola Gjeilo is a Norwegian-born composer and musician who now lives in New York City. His works fall into the category of contemporary classical, evoking the 19th-century Romantic composers but also cinematic scores and even visual media like the glass art of Dale Chihuly and the architecture of Frank Gehry. The choral music is lush and dramatic, peaceful and serene — and not easily forgotten. The audience will be humming the stirring melodies long after they leave the hall.
Swisher said, “The Williamsport Civic Chorus is a community chorus that has been bringing choral music to the Lycoming Valley since 1944. In that time, the types of music have varied — classical, folk, rock, gospel, Broadway — but our commitment has never changed. We, the members of the Chorus, come from different walks of life for one purpose — to sing together. To express our joy in music, but also to take our audience’s breath away. We think we may do just that on May 29 at the nave of St. John’s/Newberry United Methodist Church, 2101 Newberry Street, Williamsport, at 3 p.m.
Newberry United Methodist Church, which is located at 2101 Newberry Street in Williamsport.
Tickets are available at the door but also at a discount from Robert M. Sides Family Music Center and Otto Bookstore, or online at http://www.williamsportcivicchorus.org.
