The Concert Choir is the premiere mixed choral ensemble of Heidelberg University’s School of Music. Annually, the choir masters an eclectic repertoire of choral literature representing major choral genres, historical eras, and cultural traditions. Highlights of the year include the choir’s collaboration with the University-Community Chorus and Orchestra each December in performances of Handel’s Messiah and other traditional holiday favorites and the annual spring tour. The choir is open by audition to all Heidelberg University students, regardless of major. The Chamber Singers is a small ensemble consisting of singers selected from The Concert Choir that specializes in performances of music from the Renaissance, Romantic, and contemporary eras.
This year, the Heidelberg University Concert Choir’s concert theme is Oh! The Places You’ll Go. For the first time in over a decade, the Concert Choir will be traveling abroad – to Hungary and the Czech Republic– and the places on our itinerary include Budapest, Brno, and Prague! Musically, our concert repertoire is organized in a way that seeks to recognize and honor the musical heritages of the countries we will be visiting while simultaneously sharing America’s distinctive musical culture. For instance, we will be performing a selection in the Czech language by renowned Romantic-era composer Antonin Dvořák, and we will be singing a composition by Hungarian composer Lajos Bárdos. Scattered among these pieces, the choir will share choral repertoire from our native treasury of song, including music by William Billings, a prolific composer from America’s colonial era. Additional music will include traditional folk songs, African-American spirituals, and repertoire drawn from our popular music tradition. Despite being drawn from distinctive and disparate cultures, the texts of the selections speak of universal ideas: faith and fellowship, love and loss. Over the course of our program, we sincerely hope that our audience will be moved by the symbiotic relationship between poetry and music, and that the cumulative associations of each piece will evoke ever-developing images regarding the essence of life itself.