XL: Our 40th Anniversary Season

Get ready for something X-tra special! It is time to celebrate a momentous occasion in our community. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Brazos Valley Chorale! And we’re planning to make it very special. I have often used letters of the alphabet as season themes ("B," "M," and last season’s "O"), so it seems appropriate that something as big as this anniversary uses two letters, "XL." Yes, it’s the Roman numeral for 40, but you can also think "extra large" and "XL-ence." And we want as many people to be involved as possible.

The season’s first offering couldn’t get much bigger. We will be performing Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem, a monumental and moving choral spectacle with the Texas A&M Century Singers, the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra, and a quartet of special guest soloists, including the marvelous Emily Pulley. This will mark the first time that this work has been performed locally by our own forces. I am excited and humbled to be conducting this colossal work by the great opera composer. You can’t help but be stirred by the quiet pleas for peaceful, eternal rest or the bombastic evocation of the Day of Wrath in the familiar "Dies Irae." This is one of those pieces of music that you must witness live in a concert hall and you will have the opportunity this November.

Then the anniversary celebration begins in earnest with our holiday concert, "Christmas Favorites." All the music will come from previous concerts, including music from the very first concert given by the Community Singers, as the BVC was first known. Composers include Bach, Handel, Holst, Britten, Pinkham, and Victoria. There will be arrangements of familiar carols, such as "Deck the Hall," "White Christmas," "Silent Night," "Silver Bells," and "Sleigh Ride." We will have a sizable instrumental ensemble accompanying us in the wonderful acoustics of First Presbyterian Church of Bryan. Make this concert part of your holiday season.

One of the staples of the Chorale from the very beginning has been a "pops" concert, and this year is no exception. For our "Best of Pops" concert in February we will draw on programs from 40 years of making people happy. There will be favorites from our library of popular songs, including "Fascinating Rhythm," "Georgia On My Mind," "In the Still of the Night,"and "Bridge Over Troubled Water." There will also be outstanding music from the Broadway stage, including "Comedy Tonight," "All I Ask of You," "Climb Ev’ry Mountain," and "The Impossible Dream." And we’ve found a way to make this fun evening even more enjoyable and comfortable for our guests with more room for you and the expanded silent auction. Don’t miss this one!

The spring concert is reserved for the real celebration, though. All the music (except one piece) comes from the rich history of choral masterpieces presented by the Chorale over the years. We also hope to have former conductors back to lead the choir in a few pieces. And we will end the concert with a grand "reunion" chorus of former members back to perform a few songs with us. And, looking to the future, there will be one brand new piece in the concert – the premiere of a work commissioned from the renowned composer Alice Parker especially for this occasion. We are planning to make this the choral event of the year.

We invite you to be a part of the celebration. If you sing, I strongly encourage you to consider being on stage with us as part of the music making. The audition process is painless and simple. If you have sung with us before, please consider joining us for this special season, no audition necessary. If you can’t participate for the whole season, but would like to sing in the final "Reunion" chorus, I invite you to go to our web site for all the information about how to be involved with us for that occasion. We would love to have as many people as possible involved this exciting season, especially in that final chorus. And perhaps most importantly, if you are not a performer, then please plan to celebrate with us from the audience. Let’s make this a year to remember!