MANSFIELD, PA—The Mansfield University Chamber Singers will
participate in New York City’s Marble Collegiate Church worship service on Sunday, November 30.
The 20-voice Chamber Singers, directed by Peggy Dettwiler, will present a 15-minute program at 10:45 a.m. before the worship service begins and then join forces with the professional Marble Sanctuary Choir, directed by Kenneth Dake, during the 11 a.m. worship service.
The service is live-streamed on the internet and can be viewed at marblechurch.org/connect/livestreaming
The historic Marble Collegiate Church is where Norman Vincent Peale served as pastor for 52 years and Robert Shaw began his renowned choral career with the Collegiate Chorale.
Dake, organist and director of music, oversees the church’s multi-choir program known for its extraordinary diversity and musical excellence. He has invited Dettwiler to work with the Marble choirs and has visited Mansfield University to coach her choirs as well. The MU Concert Choir recently premiered Dake’s composition Further Goals.
The Chamber Singers program before the service will be Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming arranged by Hugo Distler, The Rose of Sharon by Douglas Wagner, conducted by graduate student Darrick King, Herself a Rose, She Bore a Rose by Craig Courtney and Alice Parker’s arrangement of D. Zahavi’s Y’susum Midbar.
During the service, performing with the Marble Sanctuary Choir, the program will include Dake’s arrangement of Comfort, Comfort Ye My People by Goudimel,
Praetorius and Sandström’s arrangement of Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming and There Is No Rose of Such Virtue by Robert Young.
“What a thrill it will be to make music at such a high level, in a beautiful setting, and be live-streamed on TV at the same time,” Dettwiler said.
The Mansfield University Chamber Singers is a highly select vocal ensemble of 20 voices established for the study and performance of repertoire from the vocal chamber idiom. Their literature includes madrigals and motets from the 16th and 17th-centuries, Bach cantatas, part-songs of the 18th and 19th-centuries, and contemporary selections. The ensemble performs both on and off campus. The singers are selected by a rigorous audition from the membership of the renowned MU Concert Choir.