Boys and girls choirs at Valentine Sunday
4/16/2004The focus is on the upper registers this Sunday afternoon when the Battle Creek Boychoir and all-girls Vivace Choir perform at the Valentine Theatre.
"The program features a potpourri of the repertoire that we have been singing this spring. Some of the music is very substantial, some is quite light.
All will be inviting for an audience to hear," said Brooks Grantier, who has directed the Boychoir since 1989.
The choirs are part of the non-profit Music Center of South Central Michigan, an umbrella arts organization that includes five choirs, a symphony orchestra, and a community music school.
The Boychoir began as a church program. It eventually went community wide and began its current incarnation in 1980.
The Girls' Chorus, of which the Vivace Choir is a subset, was instituted as a sister organization a few years later.
The all-girls Vivace Choir has membership in grades eight through 12. The boys are mostly aged 10-14.
The ensembles, which draw members from throughout southwest Michigan, rehearse twice weekly after school and put on a concert series every year.
This June, the institution's Girls' Chorus performs in Washington, D.C. and Colonial Willamsburg. The Boychoir travels to Canada's Stratford Festival.
Conductors Brooks Grantier and Brian C. Clissold lead the Battle Creek Boychoir and Vivace Choir respectively in music of Brahms, Bach, Rutter, and others at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Valentine Theatre. Tickets range from $15 to $35. Information: 419-242-2787.
Contact Steven Cornelius at:
scornelius@theblade.com
or 419-724-6152.