{"id":26426,"date":"2024-04-03T14:40:35","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/?p=26426"},"modified":"2024-04-03T14:43:30","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T18:43:30","slug":"marshall-chamber-choir-to-perform-at-st-johns-episcopal-church-april-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/2024\/04\/marshall-chamber-choir-to-perform-at-st-johns-episcopal-church-april-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Marshall Chamber Choir to perform at St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church April 7"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Marshall University Chamber Choir will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at\u00a0 St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church, 3000 Washington Blvd. in Huntington, following the choir\u2019s return from France, where members performed at several iconic locations.<\/p>\n

Last month, the choir traveled to France and performed at Cath\u00e9drale Notre-Dame de Chartres, built in the 13th Century; Eglise Saint Eustache in Paris, where they sang at a Sunday evening religious service; Cath\u00e9drale Notre-Dame de l\u2019Assomption de Rouen, which is featured in more than two dozen paintings by Claude Monet; and Cath\u00e9drale Sainte Croix de Paris des Arm\u00e9niens, where they sang in a joint concert with a Paris choir.<\/p>\n

Dr. David Castleberry, the choir\u2019s director and associate dean of the College of Arts and Media, and Adam Vidovic of the Paris Conservatory planned the concert in which each group performed and the two choirs sang several selections together.<\/p>\n

The members of the Marshall choir performed music ranging from Renaissance masterpieces to newly composed works, along with some lighter selections. They also sang Negro spirituals, \u201calways favorites among European audiences because they are among the most authentic works of American music,\u201d Castleberry said.<\/p>\n

In addition to concerts, the choir toured the Louvre Museum, visited the famous Latin Quarter, took a boat ride on the river Seine, and made a tour of the Palace of Versailles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are so very grateful for the support of Interim Dean Wendell Dobbs, Dean Maria Gindhart, the Marshall University Foundation, and generous support by the Maier Foundation, all of whom have been essential to the effort to make this tour possible,\u201d Castleberry said. \u201cTo experience music in these historic places, to make real what for most of our students have only been pictures and stories on the web, and to have genuine human interaction across the barriers of language and distance \u2013 these are experiences that will never be forgotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the choir\u2019s first trip in several years, as the 2020 European tour was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the choir was just 10 days away from making a trip to Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic when COVID put a halt to all travel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult for the students, after a year of planning, rehearsing, and preparing. But they handled the disappointment bravely. We just had to rebuild and keep going,\u201d Castleberry said.<\/p>\n

In 2012, the Marshall University Chamber Choir travelled to France for a 10-day concert tour, performing in Paris\u2019s Cathedral of Notre Dame, visiting prehistoric cave paintings in the Dordogne, and traveling down to the southern coast for a final concert performance in Nice.<\/p>\n

To call this kind of trip \u201clife-changing falls short of expressing just how powerful this experience was for our students,\u201d Castleberry said. \u201cOur students returned as citizens of the world. They had the most wonderful interactions with people of a different culture who embraced them with open arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The college committed to undertake similar tours on a four-year rotation, so that students in the choir would have at least one such experience during their time at Marshall. Then Dean Don Van Horn had gathered a group of donors and initiated a project called Global Horizons to raise funds to subsidize a portion of the cost and make it possible for all the singers to make the trip, as well as helping students in other programs travel. The singers performed throughout Spain in 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still receive messages from students who were part of those tours, remembering just how special the experiences were,\u201d Castleberry recalls.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s students were no different.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot find the words to describe how grateful I am to have had this opportunity,\u201d said Kate Dillon, a senior elementary education major. \u201cI come from a small town in northern Appalachia with a population of less than 500. My\u00a0mother is a teacher and my father is a coal miner. I likely never would\u2019ve had the chance to sing\/travel abroad without this opportunity. It has sparked such a thirst for travel that I know I must find a way to continue to travel and interact with my fellow global citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the performance opportunities were wonderful as well, students said.\u00a0 \u201cThe sound of the choir singing in such amazing cathedrals is an experience that cannot be replicated in any other setting,\u201d said Baylee Parsons, a junior English major.<\/p>\n

The April 7 concert at St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church is free and open to all.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Marshall University Chamber Choir will perform at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at\u00a0 St. John\u2019s Episcopal Church, 3000 Washington Blvd. in Huntington, following the choir\u2019s return from France, where members performed at several iconic locations. Last month, the choir traveled to France and performed at Cath\u00e9drale Notre-Dame de Chartres, built in the 13th Century; […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":239,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/239"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26426"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26430,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26426\/revisions\/26430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}