Orchestra, choir to perform joint concert as season finale

A 50-piece symphony orchestra and a 64-member choir will join forces at 3 p.m. on Sunday at the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts at Pittsburg State University to perform “Larksong: Music for Voices and Orchestra,” a concert of works by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

It will conclude the season for both the Southeast Kansas Symphony and the University Choirs, both based in Pittsburg State’s Music Department.

Vaughan Williams’ most famous work, “The Lark Ascending,” will open the program.

He called The Lark Ascending a “pastoral romance for orchestra,” and it immediately captivated audiences at its debut in 1921. It has been one of his most popular concert pieces ever since.

The concert will include “Toward the Unknown Region,” one of the composer’s earliest and one that brought him great acclaim. It was inspired by poet Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass.”

The concert will include “Concerto Grosso,” commissioned in 1950 by the Rural Schools Music Association to mark their 21st anniversary. Always mindful of teaching opportunities and inclusivity, Vaughan Williams devised an elegant piece that encompassed three separate groups: the concertino (experienced players), the tutti (for those with intermediate skills), and the Ad lib (an optional group for beginners who could still only play on open strings). It was premiered at the Royal Albert Hall in 1950, with over 400 participants on stage, and Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother) in attendance.

And, the concert will include “Three Shakespeare Songs,” and “In Windsor Forest.” The first two of the Three Shakespeare Songs are drawn from “The Tempest;” the third is found in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” “Sir John in Love” is his adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” to which he added a few texts by some of Shakespeare’s contemporaries. “In Windsor Forest” is his arrangement of the choruses into a separate suite.

The concert will be conducted by Assistant Professor Ramiro Miranda and Professor Susan Marchant of the Music Department.

Tickets are free to anyone with a valid Pitt State ID and to youth 18 and under. For the general public, tickets are $12 and for seniors, they are $8. They may be purchased in advance at the PSU Ticket Office, 107 Weede Gymnasium, Monday-Friday 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., or by calling 620-235-4796, or online at pittstate.edu/tickets