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Singing for the Joy of It:
The Peninsula Chamber Singers Celebrate 25 Years
December 12, 2002
by Gloria Hansen
Peninsula Chamber Singers of Door County, created in 1977 to sing for a Good Friday church service, celebrate a
Silver Anniversary this season, beginning with two Christmas concerts, December 14 and 15. From a modest beginning,
the ensemble has grown into an organization whose membership now totals over 70 singers and whose concerts draw
large and enthusiastic audiences. Each season brings four concerts, two of them sung at Christmastime and another
pair scheduled during the month of May. To better serve the Door community one of the December events and one spring
concert take place in Sturgeon Bay (at Southern Door High School Auditorium).
Four directors have served the Chamber Singers during the remarkable
quarter century being celebrated. Current Director Don Richter follows in the steps trod by Mel Kassen, Joel Blahnik
and George Larsen. It has been an eventful and productive pathway.
These days, Don Richter has developed a pattern for concert programming that has found favor with singers and audiences
alike. Traditional music, much of it from the church, is interspersed with works by contemporary composers, one
of whom (John Leavitt) joined the singers for on April 1, 2001 concert at New York's Carnegie Hall. For that event,
during which twenty-five Chamber Singers performed as a part of 200 voice choir, Leavitt served as a director.
He subsequently traveled to Door County to participate in the full chorus's 2001 May program series.
Each concert also features numbers by the Door Men, an octet of enthusiastic
gentlemen singers whose bright, smart performances have found an enduring place in the audience's affections. Instrumental
interludes often provide even further variety. Under Richter's leadership, stage appearance has received attention:
choristers moved on and off stage with professional decorum. Now each program displays a polish that would do credit
to many a professional choir.
New York was by no means the most distant point of Door Chamber singers travel. Europe, no less, welcomed an entourage
of ninety-one (sixty-one of them Door singers) during an eight-day trip in December of 1998. From Munich's Marienplatz
to Salzburg Cathedral to a picturesque Benedictine monastery, performances both planned and impromptu made the
singers always welcome. Countless warm memories were amassed during the week-plus sojourn.
Now it's time for the Anniversary celebrations to begin! Twenty-five years is a long time for an organization to
be in existence, much less a non-profit one. There are, however, a lot of other "profits" that the singers
have gathered: the smiles on the audiences' faces, the joy they feel in their hearts, the sense of pride and accomplishment,
the satisfaction of working together, and most of all, the thrill of the sounds coming from the voices of joyful
people.
The music for this December's concerts has appropriately been chosen from works performed during the past 25 years
(with the addition, naturally enough, of one new piece). It is be "slightly heavy in the Handel department"
to acknowledge that the beginning years of PCS were devoted to the singing of the Messiah only. And, there is,
as usual, a couple of audience sing-alongs.
The Program:
Helleluian - Muscogee Indian Creek Carol
Fum Fum Fum - Traditional with four-hand piano
Betelehemu - Nigerian Carol, Olatunji
For Unto Us - Handel
Halleluia - Handel
Gift of Alleluia - Gilbert Martin
Christmas Day - Gustav Hoist
The Twelve Days After Christmas
The Glory of the Lord - Handel
Night of Silence - Ferguson
Christmas Concert Dates:
Sat., Dec. 14 at Southern Door Community Auditorium at 7 PM
Sun., Dec. 15 at Door Community Auditorium (Fish Creek) at 3 PM
Admission is free.
For more information, contact Gloria Hansen at 920.868.3941.
Southern Door Community Auditorium
8240 State Highway 57 Brussels, WI 54204
920.825.7311
Door Community Auditorium
3924 Hwy. 42 o PO Box 397
Fish Creek, WI 54212
Phone: 920.868.2728
Director: Don Richter
Associate Conductors: Gladys Austgen, Merle Colburn
Accompanists: Kathryn Colburn
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