There is a beat and sound coming from inside the walls of Akin Auditorium. Singers of all ages and all walks of life, including students from this school with a future plans of musical careers will fill the place with the sound of music. Three choirs. One concert.
“Literally hundreds of hours of selection, preparation, rehearsal, practice go into a work this size,” said Dale Heidebrecht, director of choral activities, who taught at Chipola College in Marianna, Florida before he started working here three months ago. “I have included some pieces that are from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus, as it is the beginning of Hanukkah.”
With organizers expecting more than about 200 people, this concert is one of the most attended every year and will include the accompaniment of an orchestra.
“The turn out we expect this year is better than before,” Alexis Goodman, senior in vocal performance, said.
The concert is Sunday, Dec. 6 at 3 p.m. in Akin Auditorium.
Goodman, secretary for University singers, has been in choir for 13 years. The groups of singers in University Singers has about 30 members, and the Midwestern Singers is a smaller one with two or three people singing each voice part. The community choir, Oratorio, is for anyone in the community to join. It consists of 40-50 members.
“If I’m still in town, I would join the Oratorio choir after I graduate,” Matt Kohler, treasurer of University Singers, said.
Choir members, some of whom have been singing their whole lives, said they have put in many hours to make the concert a success.
“It’s funny. I was named after Whitney Houston. I’ve been singing since I was in diapers,” Whitney Hogue, vice president of University Singers, said.
Sharon Mucker, president of Midwestern Singers, said, “I love to sing. I was in show choir in elementary school.”
Students can be involved in the community by joining the community choir themselves.
“There are some kids from high school in the choir,” Winslow said. “There is actually an 90-year-old man I sit by in the choir. I think he used to be a band director.”
