On Saturday evening, April 13, 2019, BCS presented two of the great French choral-orchestral works of the 20th century: Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, op. 9, and Francis Poulenc's Stabat Mater, FP 148.The Requiem, Duruflé’s longest and most substantial work, was composed in 1947 at the end of World War II. Like Fauré's Requiem, the work focuses not on hell and damnation, but instead on images of consolation in the face of loss. The chants of the Roman Catholic Missa pro defunctis (Requiem Mass) form the melodic basis of the work, ancient melodies enriched by gentle harmonies and tender orchestral colors. Duruflé explains: “This Requiem is not an ethereal work which sings of detachment from human concerns. It reflects, in the unchanging form of Christian prayer, the anguish of man faced with the mystery of his final end.
Dutch Mill Bulbs Fundraiser
Sale March 31—April 30
Here’s an environmentally friendly way to support BCS and beautify your garden! We have partnered with Dutch Mill Bulbs, Inc., a respected company located in Hershey, PA, to offer a selection of 18 popular spring-planting/summer-blooming flower bulbs and plants. The selections include Gladiolus, Lilies, Astilbe, Bleeding Hearts, Daylilies, and hanging basket kits – to name just a few.
Singers Needed
The Bloomington Chamber Singers is seeking additional members this semester, and announces an audition opportunity for experienced singers. We especially seek more altos, tenors, and basses. his spring's concert, on April 13 at 7:30 pm at St. Mark's United Methodist Church, will feature two twentieth-century choral works, both sung in Latin: Duruflé: Requiem and Poulenc: Stabat Mater.Singers should be available for rehearsals each Tuesday evening from 7 to 9:30 pm, with a few extra rehearsals as the concert approaches.Auditions will be held Tuesday, January 15 at Unitarian Universalist Church, 2120 North Fee Lane, from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. No appointments are necessary. Singers are encouraged to bring a prepared piece to sing, although that is not required; an accompanist will be provided.
"Music from the Sistine Chapel" concert: November 10, 2018
Bloomington's Community Access Television Services recorded our "Music from the Sistine Chapel" concert of Nov. 10, 2018. You can watch the entire concert for free on YouTube:
This is Miserere by Gregorio Allegri. The soloists are Abby Henkel (soprano 1), Claire Tafoya (soprano 2), Lisa Kurz (alto), and David Rohlfing and Ian Pottmeyer (bass). For the text, click here.
Auditions for new singers
Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for new singers for its 2018-2019 season Tuesday, August 28th and Tuesday, September 4th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass.
Openings are available in all sections.
Bach Feast III CATS recording clip
Bloomington's Community Access Television Services recorded our Bach Feast III concert of Apr. 15, 2018. Here is a small excerpt from that concert:
This is the final movement from the Cantata "Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben", BWV 147.The text is as follows:
Jesus bleibet meine Freude,Meines Herzens Trost und Saft.Jesus wehret allem Leide,Er ist meines Lebens Kraft,Meiner Augen Lust und Sonne,Meiner Seele Schatz und Wonne;Darum lass ich Jesum nichtAus dem Herzen und Gesicht.
Jesus remains my joy,my heart’s comfort and sap.Jesus defends me against allsorrows,he is my life’s strength,my eyes’ delight and sunshine,my soul’s treasure and joy;therefore, I shall not let Jesusgofrom my heart and my sight.
Bach Feast II CATS recording clip
Bloomington's Community Access Television Services recorded our Bach Feast II concert of Feb. 17, 2018. Here is a small excerpt from that concert:
This is the first movement from the Cantata "Gott fähret auf mit Jauchzen", BWV 43.The text is as follows:
Gott fähret aufmit Jauchzenund der Herrmit heller Posaunen.Lobsinget,lobsinget Gott!Lobsinget, lobsingetunserm Könige!
God is gone upwith jubilation,and the Lordwith ringing trumpets.Sing praises,sing praises to God!Sing praises, sing praisesto our King!
Bach Feast I CATS recording clip
Bloomington's Community Access Television Services recorded our Bach Feast I concert of Dec. 3, 2017. Here is a small excerpt from that concert:
This is the first movement from the Cantata "Sie werden aus Saba alle kommen", BWV 65.The text is as follows:
Sie werdenaus Saba alle kommen,Gold und Weihrauch bringen,und des Herren Lob verkündigen.
They will allcome out of Shebabringing gold and incense,proclaiming the praisesof the Lord.
Feast on Bach! Feast I
This season, BCS will present "Feast on Bach," a special series of concerts that draw from the great festival cantatas Bach composed for the major feast days of the liturgical year. J.S. Bach spent a great part of his creative life as the Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where one of his main responsibilities was to provide music for the services at the church, both on Sundays and on special feast days. Bach wrote hundreds of cantatas during his tenure as Kantor; of these approximately 225 survive today. Taken as a whole, they represent a remarkable diversity of expression and profound insight into the theological depths that Bach explored in his efforts to bring to his congregation an understanding of the Biblical texts that formed the foundations of the services.
Messiah Sing-Along: Part 1
On Sunday, December 16th, 2018 at 3pm at St. Mark's United Methodist Church in Bloomington, the Bloomington Chamber Singers will continue its annual tradition of hosting a reading of Part One of Handel's beloved oratorio, Messiah. This annual free Bloomington Christmas event draws hundreds of area singers (and listeners) who come together to experience Handel's remarkable music. The reading concludes with the “Hallelujah” chorus. BCS Music Director and Conductor Gerald Sousa will lead the combined singers.Messiah is well loved not just as sacred music, but for its challenging choruses and beautiful solos. Singers of all levels and backgrounds come together each year for this wintertime tradition. Beyond the "Hallelujah” chorus, beloved movements include “Comfort Ye, My People,” “And He Shall Purify,” “Glory to God,” and many more. Attendees are welcome to sing along or simply listen to the choruses and arias, and enjoy recitatives performed by members of the Bloomington Chamber Singers.Admission is free, but attendees are asked to please bring a canned good to contribute towards a local food bank donation. Singers, if you have your own Messiah score, please bring it to use. A limited number will be available for purchase or loan.
Feast on Bach! Feast II
This season, BCS will present "Feast on Bach," a special series of concerts that draw from the great festival cantatas Bach composed for the major feast days of the liturgical year. J.S. Bach spent a great part of his creative life as the Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where one of his main responsibilities was to provide music for the services at the church, both on Sundays and on special feast days. Bach wrote hundreds of cantatas during his tenure as Kantor; of these approximately 225 survive today. Taken as a whole, they represent a remarkable diversity of expression and profound insight into the theological depths that Bach explored in his efforts to bring to his congregation an understanding of the Biblical texts that formed the foundations of the services.
Spring Messiah Sing
For over 30 years BCS has hosted a Sing-along of Handel's Messiah during the holidays, an event that draws hundreds of singers and listeners from throughout the region. Last year we added a second Sing-along of Parts 2 and 3 of Messiah during the Lenten season, and we will continue that tradition this year.We invite everyone to come out and participate in this FREE event. Monetary donations will be accepted for Community Kitchen of Monroe County. Singers should bring their own scores; a limited number will be available for purchase or loan at the door. Everyone who wishes to sing can join us for the many choruses; soloists chosen from BCS will sing the recitatives and the arias.So come out and sing, or come and listen as we continue to build a new community tradition--a Spring Messiah Sing.Here is the program booklet for our Sing-along: Messiah Spring 2018 program
Feast on Bach! Feast III
This season, BCS is presenting "Feast on Bach," a special series of concerts that draw from the great festival cantatas Bach composed for the major feast days of the liturgical year. J.S. Bach spent a great part of his creative life as the Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, where one of his main responsibilities was to provide music for the services at the church, both on Sundays and on special feast days. Bach wrote hundreds of cantatas during his tenure as Kantor; of these approximately 225 survive today. Taken as a whole, they represent a remarkable diversity of expression and profound insight into the theological depths that Bach explored in his efforts to bring to his congregation an understanding of the Biblical texts that formed the foundations of the services. The scoring for these cantatas is as rich and varied as the subject matter: prominent throughout are high Baroque trumpets, a unique variety of expressive wind instruments including the lesser known and plaintive oboe d'amore and oboe da'caccia. The choruses of the cantatas are among Bach's finest writing, and the solo writing ranges the gamut from brilliant coloratura to achingly introspective.This year we are taking a chronological journey through the Lutheran church year in a series of 3 concerts that feature some of Bach's greatest examples in this genre.Feast III: Cantatas of Pentecost, Saints, and Reformation will conclude the series on April 15th, 2018 with these cantatas:
- O ewiges Feuer, o Ursprung der Liebe, BWV 34
- Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben, BWV 147
- Es erhub sich ein Streit, BWV 19
- Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, BWV 80
Here is the program booklet for our concert: Feast III Program.
You can find a short clip of our concert here.
Auditions for our 2017-2018 season
Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for its 2017-2018 season Tuesday, September 5th and Tuesday, September 12th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass.
For detailed information about upcoming auditions, next season's repertoire, and online sign-up for audition dates and times, click here.
For more information, feel free to contact Gerry Sousa, the group's Music Director, at gerry@gsousa.com.
Messiah Sing-Along: Parts 2 & 3
The BCS presents another Messiah Sing-Along, this one covering the sections of Messiah that deal with the Passion and Redemption of Christ (Parts 2 and 3).The Sing-Along will take place at St. Mark's United Methodist Church at 3:00pm Sunday, March 31st, 2019. BCS Music Director Gerald Sousa will conduct.We invite everyone to come out and participate in this FREE event. Monetary and nonperishable food donations to the Community Kitchen of Monroe County will be accepted.Singers should bring their own scores; a limited number will be available for purchase or loan at the door. Everyone who wishes to sing can join us for the many choruses; soloists chosen from the BCS will sing the recitatives and the arias.So come out and sing, or come and listen as we continue this new community tradition--our Lenten Messiah Sing.
Serenades on a Clear Night
Several nineteenth-century composers presented their vocal and chamber works not in expansive concert halls, but in private salons and parlors. The Schubertiades, a series of intimate house concerts featuring the evocative music of Franz Schubert, were the forerunners of today’s cherished song recitals. A young Felix Mendelssohn regularly entertained a host of fashionable guests in his family’s Berlin salon through his elegant chamber compositions and his prodigious performance skills. Johannes Brahms, in a letter to his publisher, indicated that both his Liebeslieder and Neue Liebeslieder were suitable for Schubertiade-like house concerts.
God Bless Us, Everyone
“God Bless Us, Everyone” centered around a 'story theater' production of Charles Dickens’ immortal A Christmas Carol. The short story was presented in an adapted format: Charles Dickens was present to narrate his tale, and was accompanied by a group of actor-readers representing Bob Cratchit; Tiny Tim; the Ghosts of Christmases Past, Present, and Future; and, of course, the irascible Ebenezer Scrooge.Throughout the reading of the story, the hustle and bustle of Christmas was provided by the Chamber Singers and a full orchestra who offered a wide variety of popular carols, arranged or penned by the renowned group of composers associated with the remarkable Choir of King’s College, Cambridge: John Rutter, David Willcocks, and Bob Chilcott.
Auditions for our 2016-2017 season
Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for its 2016-2017 season Tuesday, August 30th and Tuesday, September 6th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass. Interested singers should have demonstrated experience in choral groups, have sung repertoire in a variety of languages in addition to English (typically Latin, German, and/or French), be able to follow a choral score, and be able to read a simple chorale or hymn. In addition, singers should be familiar with the basics of vocal production and techniques of singing in a choral ensemble. Singers are encouraged to bring a prepared piece to sing, although that is not required; an accompanist will be provided.For more information, feel free to contact Gerry Sousa, the group's Music Director, at gerry@gsousa.com.2016-2017 Audition Announcement
Joseph Haydn:Die Schöpfung (The Creation)
On April 22nd at 7:30pm in First Christian Church, the Bloomington Chamber Singers, under the direction of Musical Director Gerald Sousa, presented Haydn’s masterpiece, The Creation. A work of incomparable beauty and a personal statement of Haydn’s deeply religious faith, it reflects a belief in a world that is full of wonder and of a God who created life to be cherished and revered. There are few works in the repertoire that are as cheerful and optimistic as Haydn’s Creation—and from it performers and listeners alike draw joy, inspiration, and meaning.During his first visit to London in 1791-92, Haydn attended the annual Handel commemoration in Westminster Abbey where he heard over a thousand performers sing Handel’s Messiah and Israel in Egypt. He was transformed by what he heard in Handel’s music, particularly the musical depictions in Israel in Egypt of the buzzing flies, hopping frogs, and violent hailstorms. Over the next few years he became increasingly drawn to composing a work on a similar Biblical scope. It was on his return to England in 1795 that the impresario Johann Solomon handed him a libretto that had been among Handel’s effects at his death. That text, most likely by one of Handel’s authors, combined passages from Genesis and the Psalms with a smattering of Milton’s Paradise Lost into an epic retelling of the story of creation. Haydn was immediately drawn to it, and composed the oratorio between 1797 and 1798, setting it to a German version prepared by his collaborator, Baron Gottfried van Swieten.The first public performance was held in Vienna in 1799 and was a remarkable success. The Creation was performed more than forty times in Vienna during Haydn's lifetime: in addition, performances were mounted throughout Austria, Germany, and England, in Switzerland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Russia and the United States.The oratorio is structured in three parts. The first deals with the creation of light, of heaven and earth, of the sun and moon, of the land and water, and of plants. The second treats the creation of the animals, and of man and woman. The final part describes Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, portraying an idealized love in harmony with the "new world.”BCS previously performed the work in 1990; it was Music Director Gerald Sousa’s first major concert with the ensemble that he has now led for 26 years. See also our program booklet and program notes.
Here is the review of our concert in the Bloomington Herald-Times:
Reviews: Chamber singers and university singers convey joyful, holy sounds
By Peter Jacobi | H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.com | April 24, 2017How about that Haydn!They call him Father of the Symphony and Father of the String Quartet. They speak of him as a major influence on Mozart and Beethoven. And as one listened to a performance of his oratorio “The Creation” on Saturday evening, the thought struck: Haydn was a true citizen of the Enlightenment.His outlook on life must have been positive, optimistic, cheerful. Listening to “The Creation,” the text prepared for the oratorio by Gottfried van Swieten, the music Haydn attached to the words, one is enveloped by an ebullience that expresses faith, hope and love. One leaves the venue in which it is performed — in this case, Bloomington’s First Christian Church — with a smile, having been surrounded for close to two hours with joyful music: music that says God is good, the creation of the Earth is good, nature is good, the introduction of humankind into this stupendous act of breathing life into the cosmos is good.
Of course, a score of such breadth and length requires a performance that stresses jubilance, embodies artistic belief and features musical excellence. All that came to be, what with the Bloomington Chamber Singers and their longtime conductor, Gerald Sousa, at the center of the action. When Sousa and his chorus are involved in a project, one has come to expect high quality, and high quality there was, not only from his carefully trained community choir but from the five soloists he chose and from the orchestra he put together.Maestro Sousa often stimulates his musicians to work beyond expectation. That he did once again on Saturday. The chorus sang with superb clarity, with solidity and beauty of tone. When “the heavens proclaim the glory of God,” the singers did proclaim. When the libretto stated that “the Lord is great,” the statement rang gloriously. When, at oratorio’s end, the chorus is asked, “Sing to the Lord, all voices,” the voices surely did.So, too, when light came out of darkness and chaos, the orchestra established brilliant light, thanks to score and performance. When there were birds or creatures or waves or meadows or sun or moon, the orchestra dutifully and impressively shaped Haydn’s sounds.Praise must go also to the five soloists, each successfully selected, each a major contributor to the whole of the presentation. As the three angels — Raphael, Uriel, and Gabriel — baritone Christopher Burchett, tenor John Punt and soprano Ashley Valentine added drama to the performance. So did bass-baritone Rafael Porto and soprano Eunji Kim as they vocally portrayed Adam and Eve.All the elements worked. “The Creation” proved an auspicious way for the Bloomington Chamber Singers to conclude their 47th season....(link)
Auditions for our 2015-2016 seasonTuesday, September 1st and Tuesday, September 8th
Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for its 2015-2016 season Tuesday, September 1st and Tuesday, September 8th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass. Interested singers should have demonstrated experience in choral groups, have sung repertoire in a variety of languages in addition to English (typically Latin, German, and/or French), be able to follow a choral score, and be able to read a simple chorale or hymn. In addition, singers should be familiar with the basics of vocal production and techniques of singing in a choral ensemble. Singers are encouraged to bring a prepared piece to sing, although that is not required; an accompanist will be provided.For more information, feel free to contact Gerry Sousa, the group's Music Director, at gerry@gsousa.com.
