The Platteville Chorale will sponsor a chorale festival in celebration of its 40th anniversary as it begins its 41st season this fall.
The Chorale will be joined by singers from three area chorales for this event, which will be open to the public. The celebration will be held in the UW–Platteville Center for the Arts Brodbeck Concert Hall Sunday, Oct. 25 at 4 p.m.
The festival will begin with a group of songs by the Platteville Chorale, joined by singers from the Mount Horeb Chorale and the River Valley Community Choir for some numbers. The Dubuque Chorale Cadenza will then present several numbers. The festival will conclude with three songs in which all festival singers will participate.
The Platteville Chorale was established by Dr. Gerald Darrow and Allen Schaver in 1975. It has been directed by Greg Dennis since 2001. Dennis also directs the Mount Horeb Chorale and the River Valley Community Choir. The Platteville Chorale initiated the Platteville Children’s Choir in 1989.
The Dubuque Chorale was founded in 1971 by Dennis Williams. Dr. Bob Demaree, choral musician at UW–Platteville, has been its director since 2009. The Dubuque Chorale Cadenza is a mixed-voice group of 16 to 24 singers from the Dubuque Chorale and designed to give the Chorale greater flexibility in booking performance engagements, increasing the Chorale’s exposure as a community arts leader and advocate. At this concert the Cadenza will be directed by Jeremy Mims the assistant director.
The Mount Horeb Chorale was founded in 1986 as an outgrowth of a community choir formed that year to participate in the quasquicentennial celebration of the Village of Mount Horeb’s founding in 1861. Dennis has directed the group since its beginning. This chorale will be celebrating its 30th anniversary this spring.
The River Valley Community Choir is an outgrowth of the Rural Musicians’ Forum, a group founded also in 1986 in the Spring Green area by artist Nancy Griffey “for the purpose of presenting concerts and outreach programs in the Wisconsin River Valley and beyond.” The group is headed by Kent Mayfield and directed by Dennis. The RMS sponsors an extensive and varied concert series in the Spring Green area each summer. The RVCC is only assembled for special concerts and has sung major works including the Brahms German Requiem Mass and the Faure Requiem Mass.
Three selections to be sung at the Oct. 25 festival were sung last year at Mount Horeb’s Spring Concert. Out of the Depths by Mount Horeb composer Peter Putz, former music educator in the Riverdale and Ithaca school districts; My Shepherd by Dennis, former music educator at UW–Platteville, Mount Horeb High School and in the Flint, Mich., Community Schools; and O Clap Your Hands by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Singers from the Mount Horeb Chorale will join the Platteville Chorale for these numbers.
The Et misericordia to be sung by the Platteville Chorale in this event is taken from the Magnificat by Jonathan Willcocks. They will be joined by singers from the River Valley Community Choir for this number. The RVCC has performed two magnificats (texts presenting the birth of Jesus Christ), one by American composer Alan Hovhaness and the other by the English composer Jonathan Willcock, in Spring Green and Plain.
No admission will be charged for this event although an opportunity for donations will be offered.
