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This Spring has been as busy as any experienced by the Wheatland Chorale in its history! After a Fall season packed with appearances in several Central PA locations we continued at full tilt with performances in February at the American Choral Directors Association, Eastern Regional Conference in Philadelphia, and in March at the First United Methodist Church, in Hershey, PA. Finally, our Spring Concert series on April 23-25 became the culmination of intense and exacting rehearsals which produced one of the Chorale's most melodic and multifarious performances to date.

Opening a concert with three madrigals by Claudio Monteverdi is not for the faint of heart, especially when the first selection, Qeul Augelin, che canta, is noted as an exceptionally delicate and demanding piece. However, Signore Monteverdi’s creations gave the Chorale ample opportunity to display precision and masterful dynamic shading in some of the most deceptively complex vocal music written. Under the hand of Director Robert J. Upton the singers revealed the myriad subtleties within these short masterpieces.

Brahms' Leibeslieder Wälzer (Lovesong Walzes), the featured work of the concert, continued the concert theme of love but in style very different from that of Monteverdi. The eighteen miniatures of musical and poetic expression explored the many facets of love sparkled like jewels on the gown of a waltzing Vienna maiden. Reflecting sentiments of rapture such as, Oh these women, how they guide me close to heaven, the flames of anger in Ten boltings of iron that I must pass! I'll break them as though they were nought but glass, through the blackness of My love is a well of sorrow, one of several highlights was surely the purity of tone achieved by the tenors in the tender Don't wander, my light.

The second half of the program further reflected the breadth of the Chorale's experience and abilities, beginning with two emotionally rich works by the contemporary composer, Z. Randall Stroope. The crystalline opening chords of We Beheld Once Again the Stars led into the depths of the Inferno upon which it was based, ultimately to soar upwards to the infinity of the heavens. Still, Stroope's Winter, which tenderly weaves the story of an elderly couple struggling to come to resolution with the inevitability of illness and death, made a breathtaking portrait of Kahlil Gibran's passionate words. In a similar mode, the gossamer She Moved Through the Fair spun a tale of love leaving the listener wondering whether it was real, or all a just dream.

The audience was treated to John Rutter’s modern arrangement of the Old English folksong Dashing Away With the Smoothing Iron, followed by Annie Sallade's liquid soprano solo in Wilbur Chenoweth's Vocalise, and more choral fun from the tongue-twisting syllables of the Russian nonsense song Veniki.

As its encore, the Chorale presented one more Irish ballad, the sensitive Flummerfelt arrangement of Danny Boy, to close out the concert and a busy, demanding concert season.

Please check out our repertoire and the concert venues on this website. You can even print out and submit a ticket order form.

Contact The Wheatland Chorale at:

Wheatland.Chorale@gmail.com

Wheatland Chorale Administrative Correspondence

P.O. Box 5354

Lancaster, PA 17606-5354

Wheatland Chorale Ticket and CD Sales

P.O. Box 5945

Wyomissing, PA 19610-5945

For ticket information, please visit our Ticket Sales page.

The Wheatland Chorale receives state arts funding support through a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of

Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.