LSRHS Spring Choral Concert and Community Sing

LS Choral Concert and Community Sing

On Thursday May 19, at 7:30 PM, the Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School Music choral ensembles will perform in the final concert of the season.  Directed by LS’ new choral director Michael Bunting, the Chamber Singers, Concert Choir, and student-led groups Coro de Chicas, Acafellas, and A Choired Taste will also perform.

The highlight of the program is the annual Community Sing, where, in a long standing tradition, singers from the community are invited to join the Concert Choir and members of the LS Civic Orchestra to rehearse and perform the Requiem by modern sacred music composer John Rutter.   Bunting directs the orchestra and chorus in Rutter’s masterful setting of the ancient sacred texts.

The Chamber Singers, under Mr. Bunting’s direction, begin the program with Kirby Shaw’s arrangement of the Duke Ellington classic Take the A Train, followed by a Manhattan Transfer tune  A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square, arranged for the MT by Gene Puerling.  Their set concludes with the queitn and beautiful And So It Goes by pop song genius and pianist Bill Joel, in the arrangement by Bob Chilcott.

The three student-led groups follow.  Coro de Chicas is a quartet of sultry young ladies known to wear elegant evening dresses, sequined skirts, and other flashy performance attire, all in good taste.  Acafellas is the white T-shirted LS male a cappella vocal ensemble, and . A Choired Taste.

Last on the first half is the larger Concert Choir, also directed by Bunting.  Well-known choral composer Eric Whitacre is featured in his With a Lily in Your Hand.  The words are an English translation of the famous poem Curva (beginning with the lines ‘Con un lirio en su mano’) by Spanish poet Federico Garcia-Lorca.

Mr. Bunting presents choral awards and recognition for graduating seniors before the intermission.

The Requiem of John Rutter fills the second half of the program.   Michael Bunting assembles the Concert Choir, community singers including LS faculty and staff, and LS alumni, and members of the LS Civic Orchestra to perform Rutter’s adaptation of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass.  Rutter weaves the standard mass movements and Psalm text into an appealing setting.

Michael Bunting received his Bachelor of Music Education from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and completed his Master of Music in Choral Conducting at the University of Southern Maine under Dr. Robert Russell.  He has taught choral music in the public schools in Gardiner, Reading, and Springfield, and has performed throughout New England in various ensembles, including the Masterworks Chorale, and the Choral Art Society of Portland, ME.   He completes his first year as director of the Choral Program at LSRHS.

Admission is free; Snack foods and drink are will be sold by the LS Friends of Music. Concession sales contribute to fund enhanced music opportunities for LS music students.  For more information, email events@lsfom.org  or call the school music department at 978-443-9961, extension 2210.