Choir ends tour on high note

by Hannah Grace O'Connell
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT WRITER

Latecomers walking into Wellin Hall were momentarily confused by the sudden swell of music that seemed to come from every direction, before realizing that the melody came from above. At the conclusion of the opening song, “Coelos Ascendit Hodie,” the members of the Hamilton College Choir descended from the rafters for a captivating start to a compelling final performance of their spring choir tour.

Under the direction of G. Roberts Kolb, the Hamilton College Choir performed a variety of songs to an enthusiastic audience with one final Spring Tour concert on last Friday at 8 p.m. in Wellin Hall. The unique introduction was not the only time the choir used the entire space of Wellin Hall to create a resonance of voices. For their next song, the quiet and reflective “Sanctus,” a group of four singers stood midway back in Wellin, echoing their airy melody to the main choir onstage. One of the more interesting musical selections of the night was the sequence of three musical interpretations of Psalm 98.

In an interlude occurring about halfway through the show, various smaller groups within the choir had the chance to perform. The College Hill Singers performed a selection of Italian madrigal pieces from the 16th century before concluding with the more modern “Over the Rainbow.” The quartet Half and Half embodied old-fashioned crooning with “May I Never Love Again,” and second quartet The Bad Golfers sang an upbeat rendition of “It’s a Good Day.” Before the entire choir reconvened on stage, a capella group Duelly Noted surprised the audience with the 1950s favorite, “Why Do Fools Fall in Love?”

After these short pieces, the entire choir returned for James Stephens’ “Reincarnations,” a series of two love songs broken up by a three-part canon lament. The crowd also got to hear “Six Chansons (Rainer Maria Rilke)” composed by Hindemith, which included the movements “La Biche (The Doe),” “Un Cygne (The Swan),” “Puisque tout passe (Since All is Passing),” “Printemps (Springtime),” “En Hiver (In Winter)” and “Verger (Orchard).” The show ended strongly with a medley of traditional spirituals.

The concert was the culmination of a week of touring as far south as the Carolinas during spring break. The group performed in a different city each day, starting in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania on March 12 and continuing through to Richmond, Virginia; Columbia, South Carolina; Charleston, South Carolina; Chapel Hill, North Carolina and Washington D.C., before concluding in Princeton, New Jersey on March 18 and finishing two weeks later in Wellin.

“Choir tour was a great experience: a way to have fun performing with friends, meet alumni and travel new places. I can’t wait to do it again next year,” Madison Malone Kircher ’14 said.