Full orchestra and the Oneida Area Chorale joins MVC with solo by Susan Fedak.
May 31, 2008 7:30 PM Amsterdam High School

We’re back from the Scotland and Ireland tour with OACC which went well. Good tour, good concerts and good audiences. I did notice that instead of nice job, great concert, awesome, etc., many of the Irish use the term “It was Brilliant.” I’m looking forward to creating some brilliant moments this coming year with MVC.

Our esteemed pianist, Mr. Alfred Fedak is back with us this year to accompany and keep me straight.

The December concert concludes the MVC, kids and bells. The MVC opening portion will open with songs dealing with the announcement, the arrival and rejoicing. The second half will be songs celebrating the holidays. We will end with MVC, kids and bells all singing and ringing in the holidays.

Don’t forget the February choir festival. Bring some new singers. Another great way to recruit new members.

The March concert will be all American Folk Songs. We’ll do all different kinds of folk tunes from the Northeast, the sea, the South, the West and others. It will feature a medley call American Tapestry. Then we’ll do other singles. Our guest artists will be Scioto – Furnace. They are a trio who play bass, banjo, guitar, Dobro, fiddle, mandolin and other instruments. They’ll accompany us and be featured in a set doing things which show off their diversity. I’ve heard their demo CD. If you want to listen just go on line to www.sciotofurnace.net or you can Google it, and get there that way.

On to the May concert and the second half of the OACC exchange. No, we’re not going to try and top what happened in Rome. It was a happening and a moment. I was really proud of all the singers that participated. What we will be doing are two major works which head in a different direction and hopefully create some moments of our own.

The first work is American Mass by Ron Kean – It is the combining of celebrated American hymns and spirituals with the text of the Latin Missa Brevis with original music, making a connection between several cultures. It uses full orchestra, Soprano Solo and is 25 minutes in length.

The second work is Feel the Spirit by John Rutter – It is 30 minutes long and features seven spirituals for soprano solo, chorus and orchestra. It has the feel of a Boston Pops concert. It includes Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho, Steal Away, I Got a Robe, Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, Ev’ry Time I Feel the Spirit, Deep River and ends with When the Saints Go Marching In.

The MVC hopes to do a total Italian tour during the summer of 2008. Concerts and touring will take us to Florence, Perugia, Umbria Region, Tivoli-Sorrento, Amalfi Coast, Capri, Pompeii and Rome.

Susan Fedak, a mezzo soprano who does a wide variety of solo performances throughout the Capital Region, will be featured at the Mohawk Valley Chorus Classics Concert on May 31.

Feel the Spirit is a very special program, highlighting the arrangements of spirituals and sacred music of John Rutter and Ron Kean. The Oneida Area Civic Chorale will join MVC to create a combined chorus of 160 voices that will be accompanied by a 38-member orchestra.

Among the selections are Deep River, Ev’rytime I Feel the Spirit, Agnus Dei, Sanctus and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, When the Saints Go Marching In. John H. Nethaway, director of Mohawk Valley Chorus, calls it “a cycle of spirituals” and “a tribute to the history of the American spirit in song.”

The performance will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 31, at Amsterdam High School.

Fedak, former director of the RPI Concert Choir, is choral and handbell choir director at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Albany and adjunct voice instructor at the College of St. Rose. She is married to MVC’s accompanist, Albert V. Fedak, and the mother of two grown sons.