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Commonwealth University-Bloomsburg Music Ensembles to Perform

Bloomsburg, PA (04/02/2024) — Several Commonwealth University-Bloomsburg musical ensembles will present a series of concerts April 3 through April 7. The concerts are free and open to the public.

Concert Band

The Concert Band will perform on Wednesday, April 3, at 7:30 p.m. in Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall. The performance will include classic band music, including marches, overtures, rhapsodies, and suites. Featured composers will be Holst, Gershwin, and Rossini. The Concert Band is directed by Dr. Stephen Clickard.

Husky Singers

The Husky Singers, CU-Bloomsburg's tenor/bass choral ensemble, will present their annual spring variety show on Thursday, April 4, at 7:30 p.m. in Carver Hall, K.S. Gross Auditorium. The concert will run approximately one hour.

Songs will include the Glee Club classic, "Vive la compagnie!" and the folksongs "Star of the County Down," "Water of Tyne," "The Water is Wide," "Peace Like a River," and the Jamaican "Hol You Han." More serious works will include a setting of Tennyson's well-known poem, "Though Much is Taken, Much Abides," and Mark Templeton's "When I Hear Her."

Lighter selections will include music from The Backstreet Boys, Disney's "Whale of a Tale," the sea-shanty, "Barret's Privateers," Stephen Foster's "If You've Only Got a Moustache," and the Smothers Brother's novelty song, "My Old Man."

Humorous skits and "commercials" will add to the fun, and graduating seniors will be recognized.

Dr. Alan Baker will direct and Brian Farrell will accompany on the piano. Singers will include Cory Perkins, of Hunlock Creek; Curtis Clifford, of Hellertown; Nathan Yohn, of Turbotville; Matt Spangler, of Middletown; Nick Roditski, of Clarks Summit; Danny Tloczynski, of Bloomsburg; Sebastian Sylvester, of Rockville, Maryland; Ryan Iannuzzi, of Perkasie; Dylan Ceschini, of East Freedom; Chris Higham, of Jenkintown; Alison Grimes, of East Stroudsburg; and Jade Melton, of Shickshinny.

Orchestra

The CU-Bloomsburg University Community Orchestra, directed by Dr. David Tedford, will give its fifth Annual Concerto Competition Winners' Concert on Saturday, April 6, at 7 p.m. in Haas Center for the Arts, Mitrani Hall.

Featured student soloists will include:

Lydia Barton, a soprano from Millville, will sing "Juliet's Waltz" from Romeo and Juliette by Charles Gounod.

Alex Eby, of Catawissa on clarinet, will play the first movement of Leonard Bernstein's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, arranged for strings, piano, and clarinet.

Jace Eisler, student conductor from Blakeslee, will conduct a medley from "Star Wars" episodes 4, 5, and 6.

Select movements from Beethoven's 5th Symphony will also be performed.

Concert Choir

The CU-Bloomsburg Concert Choir, directed by Dr. Alan Baker and accompanied by Brian Farrell, will present their spring concert on Sunday, April 7, at 2:30 p.m. in the sanctuary of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, located at the corner of Main and Iron streets in downtown Bloomsburg. Pianist Ron Stabinsky will join for selected four-hand accompaniments and Alex Ebey, clarinet, will also assist.

The concert is free and open to the public and will be approximately 90 minutes. Graduating seniors will also be recognized.

Sacred selections will include Dan Forrest's "Shalom," Francisco Feliciano's "Silence My Soul," Z. Randall Stoope's "Lamentations of Jeremiah," Michael John Trotta's "Ubi Caritas," the spiritual "I Know I've Been Changed," the Appalachian song "Bright Morning Stars," and the Rollo Dilworth's gospel arrangement of "Bye and Bye," commissioned by the CU-Bloomsburg Choirs in memory of former music faculty member, Eileen Hower.

Secular works will include Eric Barnum's "Dreams of Thee," Susan LaBarr's "Grace Before Sleep," the Bosnian folksong "Niska Banja," the jazz standards "It's Only a Paper Moon" and "I Get Along Without You Very Well," the Cuban standard "Son de Camaguey," and most of Johannes Brahms's collection of Neue Liebeslieder (Love Song Waltzes).

The selection, Frode Fjellheim's "Eatnemen Vuelie," blends a Scandinavian folk "yoik" vocal pattern with the Scandinavian hymn, "Fairest Lord Jesus."

There will be numerous short solos by students Madison Young, of Muncy; Caleb Hansford, of Hatboro; Emma Bostic, of Pipersville; William Clickard, of Bloomsburg; Kelsey Sheffe, of Carlisle; Alix Wojcik, of Andover, New Jersey; Kaziah Cullen, of Fleetwood; Braeden Flannery, of Whitehall; Johanna Gelbs, of East Stroudsburg; Gretchen Rogers, of Enola; Chrissy Updike, of Bloomsburg; Ryan Iannuzzi, of Perkasie; Lydia Barton, of Millville; Bex Vermuelen, of Coopersburg; Alison Grimes, of East Stroudsburg; and Alden Sparks, of Harleysville.