Chorale sings for the season

Glacier Chorale sings sacred masterworks from the 16th and 17th centuries at two Flathead Valley churches on March 12-13.

The concert, titled "Music for Sacred Spaces," will be performed on Saturday in Whitefish at 7:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church and on Sunday in Kalispell at 3 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church.

Glacier Symphony and Chorale conductor Shaun Garner will lead the 70-voice choir, as well as the select singing group The Montanaires, in both performances of music written for the Lenten and Easter seasons.

"Music for Sacred Spaces" features a variety of musical expressions. "The program opens with a lively anthem from the Elizabethan composer Thomas Weelkes entitled "All People, Clap Your Hands."

Next will be a poignant setting of the well-known biblical text "God So Loved the World," by the German Heinrich Schuetz. The chorale will be joined by an instrumental ensemble of strings and woodwinds for "Alleluia! Sing to the Lord," a psalm setting by Georg Phllipp Telemann.

The 25-voice chamber choir, The Montanaires, will perform a set of intimate Elizabethan works. Of note are the soaring "Ave Maria" setting by Robert Parsons, and the lavishly contrapuntal work "Sing Joyfully" by William Byrd, a favorite composer of the Elizabethan court.

The Chorale and Montanaires will join voices for the closing pieces, an eight-part canon, otherwise known as a round, built exclusively on the word "Alleluia," sung in surround-sound.

The finale will be another "Alleluia" setting written for three antiphonal choirs. It features a brass quartet, the chorale and the Montanaires stationed in three locations within the hall, trading the music back and forth across the audience.

Tickets for the concerts are priced at $15 for adults, $9 for seniors and $5 for students. They may be purchased at the following ticket outlets: Books West in Kalispell; The Village Shop, Dwyers' Gallery and the Montana Coffee Traders-downtown, in Whitefish; Glacier Wallflower in Columbia Falls; ArtFusion in Bigfork; Sliters Ace Hardware in Lakeside; Century 21 Big Sky Realty in Polson; and at the door.

Call the office at 257-3241 or visit www.glaciersymphonychorale.org.for more information.

First Baptist Church is located at 6232 U.S. 93 S., and Trinity Lutheran Church is at 400 W. California St.

Glacier Chorale Women singers and Shaun Garner, Chorale Conductor