Concerts to highlight Family Weekend

Family Weekend festivities will include three concerts, including the Friday, Oct. 28, opening event at the Chapel of the Resurrection featuring the Valparaiso Community/University Concert Band and Luce Concert Band.

Performances on Saturday, Oct. 29, include a concert by the Valparaiso University Chorale and the Valparaiso University Men’s and Women’s Choirs, followed by a performance by the Chamber Concert Band later in the evening.

“These concerts celebrate the hard work and dedicated musicianship of 200 student musicians from across all the colleges and majors,” said Joseph Bognar, chair of the Department of Music. “What better time than Family Weekend to share their gifts of music with our community and with their families.”

The Luce Concert Band, comprised primarily of Valpo students in their first two years of college, and the Valparaiso Community/University Concert Band, comprised of musicians from the campus and greater communities, will join to perform a number of different pieces. Led by conductor Jeffrey Scott Doebler, professor of music, the bands will perform music from the television show “Glee,” along with “Alarm: The Call to Duty,” performed in memory of the heroes of 9/11.

The Friday concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in the Chapel and is open to the public with free admission.

On Saturday, the University Chorale and Men’s and Women’s Choirs will perform at 4 p.m. in the Chapel. Directed by conductor Maura Janton Cock, lecturer in music, the Women’s Choir will perform four pieces by women poets. “In Celebration of Women Poets” features poems by Christina Rossetti, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily Dickinson. Student assistant conductors for the group, music education juniors Randi Simons and Alyssa Wittman, will each conduct one piece.

The Valparaiso University Chorale will perform works by Sweelinck, Mozart, Distler, Moses Hogan, and others. Guest conductors are Jonathan Busarow, a 2008 Valpo graduate who completed a master’s in choral conducting from The Ohio State University, and Stefan Schuck, conductor of the Hugo-Distler-Chor-Berlin.

“We are pleased to have our students singing under Herr Schuck, visiting faculty member from the Hochschule for Church Music in Rottenberg, Germany,” Bognar said. “Our institutions have an exchange program for church music students; his visit here represents the first ‘faculty’ exchange as part of our continuing relationship.”

Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for senior citizens and non-Valpo students, and free to Valpo students and faculty and staff.

The trio of concerts concludes with a performance by the Chamber Concert Band at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Chapel. Directed by Doebler, the Chamber Concert Band is the premier concert band at Valpo. The program opens with “Overture to the Tenth Pan American Games.” Audience participation will be encouraged during “God of Our Fathers.” The performance includes a tribute to Benny Goodman, and concludes with the “Star Wars Trilogy.”

Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for senior citizens and non-Valpo students, and free to Valpo students and faculty and staff.