Chorus

The Intergenerational Chorus, sponsored by the Therapeutic Recreation Council and the Carroll County Arts Council, has announced its performance schedule for the holiday season.The chorus consists of singers of all ages with and without disabilities. The group is under the direction of Pam Miller and accompanied by Linda Filemyre.The chorus will be performing at the following locations: * Dec. 2, Westminster Inn Open House, 1:30-2:15 p.m.* Dec. 6, Carroll County Education Center Christmas Bazaar, 6 p.m.* Dec. 8, Cranberry Mall at noon and Carrolltowne Mall at 2 p.m.* Dec. 16, Uniontown Home Tour, 2-4 p.m.Information: 857-2103.

Chorus of the Chesapeake presents spring show May 11, Students from Calvert Hall College High School and Notre Dame Preparatory School team up for Operation Clean Stream, David "Shepherd" Warren, named a 2013 Carson Scholar, J.C. Lazzaro selected 3rd chair viola in the All-Eastern Honors Orchestra. Looking for some wonderful entertainment to celebrate spring? Timonium resident Bill Day announced that The Chorus of the Chesapeake's annual spring show is scheduled for Saturday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m. at Parkville High School.

NOVEMBER AND December are to choral singers what July and August are to Ocean City: peak season. For the last two months, all across the United States, singers in choruses large and small have rehearsed and performed thousands of holiday programs. For singers, Santa's arrival means they finally have a day off. In a recent study conducted by Chorus America, the association of choruses, researchers found that there are more than 250,000 organized singing groups in the United States. More than 28 million people participate in these groups, far more than in any other performing art. Fifteen percent of American households include an adult who has performed publicly in a chorus within the last 12 months.

The Upper Chesapeake Chorus, comprised of women mainly from Harford and Cecil counties, on Saturday, April 20, won the Region 19 competition of Sweet Adelines International, held in Ocean City. Led by director Rick Taylor, 42 local women won the competition's first place overall and first place mid-size chorus medals, earning the right to represent Region 19 (comprised of choruses from five states) at the international competition in Baltimore in fall 2014. This will be UCC's second time in the international competition.

Chorus of the Chesapeake presents spring show May 11, Students from Calvert Hall College High School and Notre Dame Preparatory School team up for Operation Clean Stream, David "Shepherd" Warren, named a 2013 Carson Scholar, J.C. Lazzaro selected 3rd chair viola in the All-Eastern Honors Orchestra. Looking for some wonderful entertainment to celebrate spring? Timonium resident Bill Day announced that The Chorus of the Chesapeake's annual spring show is scheduled for Saturday, May 11 at 7:30 p.m. at Parkville High School.

The Carroll County Choral Society will begin rehearsals for its 23rd Spring Concert at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow in the Music Room at Westminster High School.Membership is open to all adults who enjoy singing, and all voiceparts are welcomed.Auditions will be at 7 p.m.Dues are $5.The school is at 1225 Washington Road, Westminster.Information: 549-6827 or 848-9080.

This review is from yesterday's late editions.The popular title of Mozart's uncompleted C Minor Mass is "The Great," and the word for the performance it received Thursday night in Meyerhoff Hall from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Chorus is tremendous. This was the best playing this listener has heard the BSO do this season, and, young though this season is, he does not expect to hear better.The chief reason for this excellence was the presence of Robert Shaw on the podium. Shaw is so often (and has been for so long)

Baritone Richard Zeller will perform as soloist with the Columbia Pro Cantare Chorus for Antonin Dvorak's "Requiem" this Sunday afternoonin Washington.The 3 p.m. performance, at the National City Christian Church, will cap the chorus' three-day 150th anniversary celebration of the birth of the composer.Also performing on "Requiem" will be The MusicCrafters orchestra.For information, call (301) 465-5744.The Dvorak celebration begins at the Kennedy Center on Friday with a vocal and piano chamber concert at 7:30 p.m. This concert is presented by the Washington Performing Arts Society.

That the Baltimore Symphony Chorus is a superior ensemble, and that conductor Edward Polochick has done a fine job in the 15 years he has directed it, was obvious last night in Meyerhoff Hall in an all-Mozart concert with the BSO that celebrated the 25th anniversary of the founding of the chorus.The centerpiece of the program (and the only work in which the chorus appeared) was Mozart's "Requiem" in D Minor (K. 626), the composer's final, not-quite-completed work.The singing of the chorus was confident in attack and eloquent of utterance, and the massed sound it produced was luminous at both soft and loud dynamic levels.

THE CHILDREN'S Chorus of Maryland, singing in charming tone and harmony in its annual Twelfth Night concert Sunday, followed director Andrea Nutter Macon's cues as carefully as if she were picking replacements for New Kids on The Block.In doing so, the chorus showed that it can provide solid entertainment for non-relatives as well as family and a good training ground in musicianship for more than 100 children between 6 and 16. If you throw in a little P.D.Q. Bach craziness and 39 older kids playing kazoos, it's downright fun.The Second Presbyterian Church was packed tight with 700 parents, relatives and fans who heard a delightful hour-long program by the chorus' three choirs: forty 6- and 7-year-olds in the Beginning Choir; 38 kids between 8 and 11 in the Training Choir and 39 children 11 to 16 in the Concert Choir -- 117 in all from about 50 different schools.

Columbia Pro Cantare thematically goes abroad for its concert of "Music of Spain and Latin America" on Saturday, May 4, at 8 p.m. at the Jim Rouse Theater at Wilde Lake. Not only will some of this music be unfamiliar to many listeners, but it's also new for the chorus. "It's a complex program," says Columbia Pro Cantare music director Frances Motyca Dawson of a concert that includes pieces from Spain, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela and Cuba. Although Dawson's Howard County-based chorus did a Latin American program in 2008, she says the upcoming concert promises to be even "more inclusive.

When Johannes Brahms set about composing a requiem to commemorate his mother, he aimed for something that was more about comforting than crying, more about coming to terms than fretting about whatever judgment might await the dead. The result, "Ein Deutsches Requiem" ("A German Requiem"), is one of the glories of the choral repertoire, one of Brahms' most personal and affecting pieces. Melinda O'Neal, in her final concert as artistic director of the Handel Choir of Baltimore, conducted an impressive performance of the Requiem Sunday afternoon that communicated its bittersweet lyricism and the ingenious cohesion of its architectural shape.

Sometimes something special just happens. It happened the other night at Columbia Pro Cantare's performance of Handel's Messiah. The music, the performers just seemed perfectly aligned with each other. Frances Motyca Dawson was on top of her chorus. They all had been there before, many times, but there was nothing tired or predictable in the performance. They just got better and better as the night continued. Ronald Mutchnick's orchestral ensemble was also amazing. I actually looked for the individual musicians - who was playing the violins, the trumpet?

J. Ernest Green's masterful conducting of the Annapolis Chorale, Chamber Orchestra and soloists in two performances of Richard Einhorn's "Voices of Light," an oratorio set to Carl Dreyer's 1928 silent film "The Passion of Joan of Arc," brought a unique experience to near-capacity audiences last weekend at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts. Having heard Einhorn's 1994 work in Green's January 1999 regional premiere, and again this March when Marin Alsop conducted it with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Baltimore Choral Arts Society at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, I was aware of its relevance and profound emotional impact.

Area high school students to perform in honors concert at Morgan State Several musicians from Lansdowne High School and Catonsville High School are to be among more than 270 students from county public schools who will perform during the annual Baltimore County Public Schools High School Honors Concert Nov. 12 at Morgan State University. The concert will begin at 7:30 p.m. and include performances by the county's honors orchestra, chorus, and band. Catonsville students in the honors band are: Alex Burinsky (bassoon)

Despite reports out of Kansas City that Matt Cassel could lose his starting job - or at least a few snaps - to backup Brady Quinn, the Ravens intend to prepare as if Cassel will be the starting quarterback for Sunday's game. “I do - until the coaches tell us something different,” outside linebacker Paul Kruger said. “I think you just prepare your best for the both of them. It looks like we're going to see Cassel, but who knows?” “You prepare for their starter,” inside linebacker Jameel McClain said.

ASK 12-YEAR-OLD Rhiannon Aliff what brings her the most joy, and she'll probably sing a song. Ever since her parents, Pattii and Gene Aliff, can remember, Rhiannon has "always been a singer; she always loved to sing, sing, sing." Next month, this Westminster girl will join an elite group of children in Pittsburgh, when she sings with the Children's Honors Chorus at the American Choral Directors Association's Eastern Area Division Convention. She earned a spot in the chorus after a rigorous audition in February, said Diane Jones, her singing coach and director of the Carroll County Children's Chorus.

ON AUG. 1, the Star Spangled Chorus, Dundalk Chapter Sweet Adelines International will be the performing group at the Concert in the Park series. The show will begin at 6 p.m. in Linthicum Park on Benton Avenue.Forty-five members will sing at the concert along with two of the chorus' three quartets. Chorus membership includes women from Germantown to Westminster, from Bel Air to Columbia, Anne Arundel and Baltimore counties and Baltimore City.The concert at 6 p.m. today is the Baltimore Symphonic Band, playing show tunes, big-band and patriotic music.

Sometimes it's the lyrics and not the music that set a song apart. For the Ellicott City-based ShowTime Singers, one of the most challenging musical numbers they've performed was "America the Beautiful" - when they sang it in Mandarin for a Chinese New Year festival a few years ago. The 47 members of the choral group studied the spoken translation recorded by member Ruihua Tao, who is a native of Beijing and a Columbia resident. Then they put the new words to the patriotic tune in four-part harmony for appreciative immigrants and Chinese-Americans in the audience.

St. Anne's Church in Annapolis was filled last weekend with the miraculous sound of the Annapolis Chorale Chamber Chorus, joined by the Annapolis Chamber Orchestra and six guest soloists for two great performances of Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B-minor. This performance of Bach's medley of masterworks was the first by Live Arts Maryland music director J. Ernest Green and his chorus, lending the added luster reflected by their joint discovery of its musical secrets. Regarded as a supreme achievement by music scholars, Bach's Mass is also an enigma, a Latin work composed by the Protestant "Cantor of Leipzig," and finished in the last year of his life.