MANSFIELD, PA—“How to get to Carnegie Hall?” is the question on the front of some t-shirts sold at gift shops in New York City, and the answer is given on its back: “Practice, practice!” 
Not that this advice is wrong,–the Mansfield University the Concert Choir practiced a lot during the fall semester, and, on the evening of the concert in Carnegie, held a rehearsal at Marble Collegiate Church on Fifth Avenue, but so much more had to come together to make a concert in the venerable hall a reality.
More than a year ago, Performing Arts Educators, a non-profit organization with the praiseworthy goal of connecting performing groups with first-class venues, had asked MU Director of Choral Activities Peggy Dettwiler to organize and direct their 11th Annual Invitational at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, January 14.
Since the date was Martin Luther King Weekend, it was decided that the event would celebrate the life of the civil rights icon of the 1960s, one of the great peacemakers of our time. Soon a motto was found: “Of War, Peace, and the Power of Music.”
Invitations went out to a number of choral directors in half-a-day’s driving distance to New York City; some of them Mansfield University graduates who, in their career as teachers and choral educators, had built up ensembles with a reputation of excellence.
The groups that performed, with MU graduates leading them asterisked, were:
Port Alleghany High School Chamber Singers (Port Alleghany, PA), Kenneth J. Myers*
Palmyra-Macedon Select Choir (Palmyra, NY), Jill Marie Davis*
Renaissance (Dover, PA), Samantha Roberts*
Waterford Institute of Technology Youth Choir (Waterford, Ireland), Niall Crowley
Cranford High School Choir (Cranford, NJ), Anthony J. Rafaniello
East Brunswick High School Choir (East Brunswick, NJ), Zachary Gates, Gregory Jung
Morris Knolls High School Choir (Rockaway, NJ), Michael Semancik
Virginia Glee Club (Charlottesville, VA), Frank Albinder
Mansfield University Concert Choir (Mansfield, PA), Peggy Dettwiler
The MU Concert Choir was the last ensemble to perform before the Finale. The singers started with Samuel Adler’s Prophecy of Peace, a fanfare-like affirmation of Biblical verses, followed by Bernstein’s House, arranged by Rob Fisher, a combination of two songs from Peter Pan and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, with Madeleine Hoover on the piano and Tayana Woodton on the cello.
Thomas Dorsey’s Precious Lord, on a text that was particularly meaningful for Martin Luther King in times of crisis, left no eye dry, and the same can be said of Marta Keen’s Homeward Bound with Eli Sauls, Victoria Royal, and Donavan Darienzo as vocal soloists.
Engaging the audience with sonorous imitation of dripping and torrential rain as well as lightning and thunder in the transition to the last number proved tricky, but then the joyful Unclouded Day by J. K. Alwood burst forth. At the end, there was a standing ovation for the singers from Mansfield. 
The hymn-like polyphonic Finale gathered all 450 singers in a glorious rendition of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s “Nation shall not lift up a sword against nation” from Dona Nobis Pacem, a work that will be performed in April by the Festival Chorus in Mansfield.
Colin Macknight (Juilliard School of Music), organ; MU’s Madeline Hoover, piano; and Mansfield percussionists Coleman Lidle, Khosi Jones, Joseph Turner and Cole Ramsey assisted in undergirding the dense choral textures with instrumental and percussive sounds.
The greatest praise, however, must go to Dettwiler, who held the tricky textures and conflicting meters and tempo changes together as a conductor, despite limited rehearsal time and a Carnegie-paid time-keeper breathing down her neck even before the allotted and paid-for time had run out, and to senior Lucas Lourenco and sophomore Cassie Zinkan, who performed their solos at the beginning and end of the movement, respectively, with the panache of professional singers.
Zinkan even had the last word, pianissimo, as the choir of nearly half a thousand dropped out to allow her one last “(pa)-cem” that reverberated in the vast spaces of Carnegie Hall. And then there was silence held for nearly 10 seconds or longer, hanging in the air and translating into shivers among listeners, before the applause broke.
Tony Award winning actor and singer Chuck Cooper added a marvelous presence as a singer and speaker. As a baritone he set the stage with a gripping rendition of “I have been in the storm so long” and reminded the audience halfway into the concert with an equally authentic performance of Deep River of the historical context of the concert. As a speaker, Copper functioned as a guide and anchor by reciting statements of Martin Luther King with a great sense of timing as one ensemble walked off stage to make room for the next. At the end, before the Finale, he was even able to invoke not just the words but also the intonation and speech of the great civil rights leader: “We shall overcome…yeah…let’s hear it…come on…… we shall overcome.” And briefly, alas too briefly, we all believed that Martin Luther King Jr. was there among us in the flesh.
Information provided by Jürgen Thym