Archive: Arts & Entertainment

The Wells College Choral Ensembles will celebrate their 50th Anniversary under the direction of their founder and conductor, Crawford R. Thoburn, when they present their annual Spring Concert on Sunday, May 9 at 4:00 p.m. The Concert will be held in Barler Recital Hall on the Wells College campus in Aurora, N.Y. The three singing groups—Women’s Ensemble, Men’s Ensemble, and the mixed voice Concert Choir—will present a wide variety of choral works from the sixteenth century to the present. Admission to the concert is free, and the public is cordially invited to attend this landmark event.

The Wells choral ensembles have performed widely throughout the Northeastern U.S., and in Europe, winning prizes in international competition, singing by invitation for national professional music organizations such as MENC and ACDA, and appearing on public television and radio in this country and abroad. These activities have won a reputation of choral excellence for the singers from Wells.

This year's "Music For Spring" concert will feature the Concert Choir of mixed voices singing sacred and secular works from composers such as Hans Leo Hassler, Jacob Arcadelt, and Orlando di Lasso, as well as Nineteenth Century works by Felix Mendelssohn, Arthur Sullivan and Edward Elgar, a black spiritual arranged by Harry T. Burleigh, and excerpts from the musical "West Side Story" by Leonard Bernstein.

The Women’s and Men’s Ensembles will each present works from their repertoires including American and British folksongs, a Black spiritual, and a Welsh hymn-tune arrangement. Pianist Russell Posegate, lecturer in music at Wells, will accompany the ensembles.

Crawford R. Thoburn, the founder and conductor of the Wells Choral Ensembles is Professor of Music, senior member of the Faculty, and Chair of the Division of the Arts at the College. In addition to his work as a conductor and teacher, more than one hundred of his choral compositions, arrangements, and editions have been published, and choirs across the U.S. and throughout the world sing his music. Professional, church, and college groups record his works, which have been broadcast on National Public Radio and Public Radio International.

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