Kylee Deering | A&L Co-Editor
Buena Vista University’s (BVU) choir will be performing at Carnegie Hall in New York over spring break in March. The group will be there for a week, starting on March 20 and going until the 27th. BVU’s choir will first stop in Boston, Massachusetts for a couple of days to do a few concerts there before moving on to New York. Once there, they’ll be rehearsing throughout the week in preparation to perform.
BVU was given the opportunity to sing at Carnegie Hall after their competition in Italy last spring. The choir was contacted by a few groups who do shows in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. The groups invited them to audition so they took a video and sent it in. The choir got a couple offers back, one being at Lincoln Center and one being at Carnegie Hall. They were trying to decide between the two and talked it over as a choir. Carnegie Hall was chosen because the people organizing the Carnegie Hall experience were offering the group a solo spot to open up rather than just singing with other choirs in the orchestra. The opportunity to open up and perform solely as a group offered a better choice in the end.
Junior Alyssa Kragelund shared her feelings about BVU being chosen to perform at Carnegie Hall.
“It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m just really glad we get to have this chance,” says Kragelund.
Since BVU’s choir is not an audition choir, everyone has the opportunity to participate. This also means that every student in choir has the opportunity to go to Carnegie, as long as they’re willing to put in the work.
The work the choir has already put in so far has been sizeable. Under the instruction of Dr. Merrin Guice, Assistant Professor of Vocal Music, the group has been learning and rehearsing the Schubert Mass in G. The group will be performing this composition with the orchestra and a couple of other choirs while in New York. In order to evaluate and make sure the students are all learning their parts, the choir will be splitting up into quartets and singing through different parts of the composition to ensure everybody is on the right track. This is important for the choir as Carnegie Hall will be doing the same once the choirs get there. BVU wants to be as prepared as possible so if any of their choir is put into a quartet, they’ll feel confident in knowing their parts.
Kragelund feels that this year’s choir group has a lot of talent and potential.
“I’m really excited to work with everybody in choir,” says Kragelund. “I think we’ll do very, very well. We just have to continue to work at it and remind ourselves that we’re not there yet, we still have to work as we go.”
Featured image courtesy of University Marketing & Communications
