Maryville College Small Choral Ensembles Concert gives patrons a glimpse at spring choir tour agenda

Feb. 9, 2024

Poster for Maryville College's upcoming Small Choral Ensembles concert

The Maryville College Concert Choir will embark on its spring tour later this semester to carry a metaphorical light to those in need of hope, but local patrons of choral music can get some hope of their own during the Feb. 13 Small Choral Ensembles Concert at the Clayton Center for the Arts.

Off Kilter, The Lads and The Lassies — each of whom includes members drawn from the MC Concert Choir — will present selections from the “Songs of Hope” tour that begins with a Choir Tour Send-Off Concert scheduled for March 5. And doing so on a smaller scale, and in a more intimate venue, makes the emotional resonance of the songs more impactful, said Stacey Wilner, director of choral activities at Maryville College.

“We are featuring music that explores the dark and the light side of mankind,” Wilner said. “The small ensembles do create a more intimate space during their concerts, both musically and emotionally. Concerts in the (Harold and Jean) Lambert Recital Hall allow for the audience to see the singers up close and personal. You can see the tears and the smiles, which enhances the experience. Because of these factors, the small ensembles in a more intimate space are able to be powerful storytellers.”

Some of the works on the program, Wilner added, include:

• “Daemon Irrepit Callidus,” written by Romanian composer Gyorgy Orban and using minor second intervals, augmented chords and chromatic scales to “musically illustrate the deception of the devil and his attempts to seduce the honorable heart,” Wilner said. The piece will be performed by Off Kilter, a SATB (soprano-alto-tenor-bass) ensemble made up of mostly upper-level students directed by Wilner and accompanied on piano by Chase Hatmaker ’14.

“Just as in Concert Choir, this is an exceptionally dedicated and motivated group of young singers,” Wilner said. “They care about the music, and they make efforts to understand and know one another.”

• “Turning,” an arrangement by Rory Cooney and set by Joni Jensen that encompasses the melody of the traditional Irish folk song “Star of the County Down.” The piece will be performed by the soprano-alto ensemble The Lassies, directed by Wilner and accompanied on piano by Dr. Jennifer Olander Anderson ’05.

“The piano accompaniment serves as a partner to the turmoil, the turning of the world, that is woven into the vocal lines,” Wilner aid. “The composer’s use of dissonance and canon illustrate this fiery struggle and the piece ends on a solid final chord, symbolizing the dawning of a new day.”

• “Little Sparrow” by Dolly Parton, another selection that will be performed by The Lassies.

“Dolly Parton credited her Uncle Bill Owens for being the inspiration for this song,” Wilner said. “The idea for the song came from a bird outside her window that continued to sing during a raging storm. The vulnerability of the sparrow symbolizes Parton’s own feelings of fragility.”

In addition, other works by The Lads will be performed, and the entire repertoire of the Small Choral Ensembles Concert will give patrons a taste of what they might expect, both on the MC Concert Choir spring tour, and when the group returns to the Clayton Center for its full spring concert on March 26.

“This is an exceptionally dedicated group of students that care deeply about making a difference through music,” Wilner said. “They may be the most disciplined singers that I have had the honor to work with. They embrace challenges and do so with a positive attitude. Since they are the ‘COVID generation,’ these students seem to have a greater appreciation for what it is they do. The COVID-19 days were not kind to musicians all over the world, but especially impacted choral ensembles in schools and churches. However, we are all slowly rebounding and rebuilding our forces.”

The Small Choral Ensembles Concert will take place at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, in the Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10 for the general public, but MC students, faculty and staff will be admitted free with a printed ticket. For more information or to purchase tickets, call the Clayton Center box office at 865-981-8590 or visit www.claytonartscenter.com.

Maryville College is a nationally-ranked institution of higher learning and one of America’s oldest colleges. For more than 200 years we’ve educated students to be giving citizens and gifted leaders, to study everything, so that they are prepared for anything — to address any problem, engage with any audience and launch successful careers right away. Located in Maryville, Tennessee, between the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the city of Knoxville, Maryville College offers nearly 1,200  students from around the world both the beauty of a rural setting and the advantages of an urban center, as well as more than 60 majors, seven pre-professional programs and career preparation from their first day on campus to their last. Today, our 10,000 alumni are living life strong of mind and brave of heart and are prepared, in the words of our Presbyterian founder, to “do good on the largest possible scale.”