GREENVILLE, PA—The Thiel Choir will be joined by the Clarion University Concert Choir and Symphony Orchestra on Sunday, Nov. 2 at 3 p.m. at St. Michael’s Catholic Church, 80 N. High Street, for a joint All Saints Concert, featuring 140 voices in the combined choir. 

The program will feature the music of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of his death. The center piece of the program is the anti-war choral cantata, “Dona Nobis Pacem,” scored for large chorus and full orchestra. This work is based primarily on the poems of Walt Whitman, who worked as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War.  Vaughan Williams composed the work in 1936 as Germany was threatening to invade England. The program also will include Vaughan Williams’ arrangement of the hymn “For All the Saints” and his anthem “O Clap Your Hands.”

Dr. Henry A. Alviani, director of the Clarion University Concert Choir, will conduct the “Dona Nobis Pacem,” which will feature baritone soloist Dr. Michael Bray, director of the Thiel Choir, and soprano soloist Michelle Hall, a senior music education major at Clarion. Bray will conduct “For All the Saints” and “O Clap Your Hands.”

Both choirs will perform independently as well—the Clarion Concert Choir will present Vaughan Williams’ “Just as the Tide was Flowing” and the Thiel Choir will sing “When From Eternal Worlds We Steer,” which is based on the Early American religious ballad “Sailor’s Home.”

The concert also will be presented in the Marwick-Boyd Auditorium on the Clarion University campus at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 1. Admission to both concerts is free.

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