Choral Collage

On October 6th, I had the opportunity to watch the School of Music's annual choral concert. The concert was conducted by two professors, Derrick Fox and Janet Galvan. Mr. Fox conducted the Ithaca College Chorus and Madrigal Singer, while Ms. Galvan conduced the Women's Chorale, and the Ithaca College Choir. All choirs featured students from all over campus, singing choral music from different composers.

All the songs that were performed were choral, with a diverse timespan of composers. Fox and Galvan were able to put together a concert that was able to combine classic choral songs to modern age composers. For example, the Madrigals, which is conducted by Fox, performed "Amor vittorioso" by Giovanni Gastoldi (1566-1609) while the chorus, also conducted by Fox, performed "Seal Lullaby" by Eric Whitacre, who is still composing today. I thought all the songs overall were a great pick for each group. It was nice to listen to each group sing a diversity of choral genres from different time periods.

Looking directly at "Seal Lullaby" by Eric Whitacre, the harmonies were incredible! The flow of the song is created to be effortless. For this song, someone in the choir was playing piano as the rest of the choir was singing. The song begins with the entire choir singing before breaking off into a soprano solo section, which set up the reset of the song beautifully! The dynamics that were used during the song were really impressive. Many times during the song, the choir would start of soft and build to the climax of the piece. The overall sound of the choir was very unison, which makes it even more impressive.

I was very impressed with this concert! I thought the choir sounded fantastic! It was great to see four very different choirs perform songs that were diverse in different ways. It was not a concert where you had to listen to the same type of song over again. Each song was different from one another. I also liked how the chorus danced to their final song, "Fiela."I thought it was a great performance choice!

Compared to other works we listened to, the songs in the concert would most relate to classical music. Again, looking at "Seal Lullaby," a lot of the phrases that were used were very repetitive and effortless. The songs were very structured with each voice part coming in a certain times throughout a piece.

Great job IC Choral!