The Northern Virginia Chorale Performance Schedule

To order CD's from any of these past concerts,
please visit our CD recordings page, and enter the name and date of the concert into the order form.

• December 5th, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Rejoice! Holiday Concert:

— This concert highlights Gwyneth Walker’s beautiful Rejoice! as well as John Rutter’s Winchester Te Deum, Z. Randall Stroope’s All My Heart This Night Rejoices, and other great holiday works. Northern Virginia Community College Annandale Chorale will perform yuletide favorites. The concert includes a brass quintet and percussion, with piano accompaniment..

• May 16th, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Our American Heritage:

— Our season closed with a gala night of song and celebration. The Chorale presented some of its favorite American music including folk songs, spirituals, Broadway show tunes, and the best of popular American war songs. Daryl Duff, a Navy Sea Chanter was our soloist, and did a fabulous job of singing some beautiful pieces. After the concert, we had hors d’oeuvres and sweets in the Fellowship Hall.

• March 28th, 2009 at 8:00 p.m.
Shakespeare in Spring:

— The Chorale celebrated the arrival of spring with Vaughan William’s Serenade to Music, George Shearing’s Music to Hear and even a little P.D.Q. Bach for some fun. The NVCC Annandale Chorale joined us on this concert.

• Saturday, December 6th, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.
A Feast of Carols:

— The Chorale celebrated the holiday season with brass, pipe organ, and song in the splendid acoustics of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church. Randol Alan Bass’ majestic Gloria anchored a varied program, with seasonal works ranging from the Renaissance Period to American gospel. From the opening medieval song, Gaudete! to the final carol sing-a-long which included Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, audience members enjoyed choral works such as The Dream Isaiah Saw, Ocho Kandelikas and other traditional holiday carols. This program lived up to its billing as a“A Feast of Carols.”

• Sunday, June 29th, 2008
“Bon Voyage” Summer Concert
— performed at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Springfield

— This was a pre-performance of the program we performed in Northern Italy, during the first week of July. The chorale performed this concert around Lago di Garda near Verona and at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. The program consisted of a mixture of classical, American spiritual, and popular songs.

• Friday, May 2nd, 2008:
The Three B’s: Bach, Beethoven and Brahms
— Our Spring concert consisted of the following choral works by the three classical composers.
(Note: In this concert, the chorale was accompanied by a small chamber orchestra.)

• Ludwig van Beethoven's Mass in C Major - Opus 86

• Johannes Brahms' Schicksalslied ‘Song of Fate’ Opus 54

• Johann Sebastian Bach's Sanctus in D Minor (BWV 239)

• Saturday, December 16th, 2007:
Broadway Show Tunes and Carols
— Holiday Dessert Concert

— Our annual holiday concert of 2007 featured a medley of holiday songs from Broadway shows designed to rid us of any Bah Humbug thoughts and set us on the path of yuletide merriment. These Broadway showstoppers include such songs as: “God Bless Us Everyone, It's Beginning To Look Like Christmas, March Of The Toys, My Favorite Things, Pine Cones and Holly Berries, Toyland, and We Need A Little Christmas.” Additionally, the concert included other holiday carols and selections from Handel’s “Messiah.” Piano, brass and drums accompanied the chorale's joyful celebration of the season. Refreshments followed the concert.

Note: Members of the Chorale joined the Met Chorus at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall for Handel’s “Messiah Sing Along” concert on December 9, 2007 at 2:00 p.m.

• October 27th, 2007:
A Concert of Remembrance

— Dedicated to the late Bill Braun, a longtime member of the chorale, this concert featured the classic choral work of Fauré’s “Requiem.” The French composer Gabriel Urbain Fauré completed this work in 1890. In describing his composition, he said, “It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience.”

The chorale also performed Randall Thompson's “Testament of Freedom.” This work was composed by Thompson in 1943 while he was teaching at the University of Virginia. An orchestra accompanied the chorale honoring our beloved Bill Braun.

• May 5th, 2007:
Our American Heritage
— A Tribute to the Founding of Jamestown

— Vrginia celebrated the 400th anniversary of the founding of America’s first permanent English colony, by the landing of 104 Englishmen on the banks of James River on May 14th, 1607. Composer Randall Thompson’s “Ode to the Virginia Voyage” captures this piece written by Michael Drayton in 1606, as an exhortation for English settlers to go forth and subdue new lands. The Jamestown settlers reportedly sang the Ode during their four-and-a-half month voyage to the New World. While history preserved the Ode’s text, it provides no record of the original music. Randall Thompson orchestrated the Ode for its first performance in 1957 at Jamestown, commemorating the settlement’s 350th Anniversary.

The concert included songs from the 17th Century, and some madrigalian Celtic pieces sung by students of the Northern Virginia Community College’s Music program. It also included “Shenandoah” one of America's most well known folk songs. It concluded with two songs from Aaron Copland’s opera “The Tender Land.” The songs “The Promise of Living” and “Stomp Your Foot Upon the Floor” are set in the American heartland during the Great Depression. This work evinces the feelings of a high school senior farm girl deciding how best to live her life. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II commissioned Copland to create this work for its opening performance in 1954.

• March 3rd, 2007:
An Evening with Lerner and Loewe
— Our Annual Dessert Concert

— The artistry of Frederick Loewe’s romantic melodies coupled with the moving lyrics of Alan Jay Lerner produced some great Broadway musical hits from 1947 to 1960. Recall the moving lyrics from the musical Camelot: “Your hair streaked with sunlight, your lips red as flame, your face with a luster that puts gold to shame.” This concert lifted spirits with a medley of songs from that memorable show as well as “Brigadoon,” “My Fair Lady,” and “Paint Your Wagon.” The audience was invited to join the concert for our annual dessert reception open to all attendees.

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