LWC Choral Groups to Perform the Music of Poetry Nov. 2

COLUMBIA, Ky. -- Several years ago, Gerald L. Chafin's research in choral literature led him down an interesting path.

Chafin, who is Lindsey Wilson College associate professor of music and director of choral programs, began collecting musical settings of distinguished poetry.

"By this, I mean well-known poems penned by the classical poets and were set to music years later," Chafin said.

Monday night, the community can hear "the poets sing."

The Lindsey Wilson choral ensembles will present "The Poets Sing: Musical Settings of Distinguished Poems" 7 p.m. CT Monday, Nov. 2, at Columbia Baptist Church. The concert -- which is part of the 2009-10 Lindsey Wilson Cultural Affairs Series -- will feature the Lindsey Wilson Concert Choir and the Lindsey Wilson Singers.

The concert is free and open to the public.

The Nov. 2 concert will feature a variety of poems and poetry set to musical arrangement.

"Yes, all choral literature is by definition set to a text," Chafin said. "However, usually a composer crafts a composition in something of a chicken-versus-egg game Which came first -- the text or the music? Interestingly, there is evidence in both directions."

In the case of the music to be presented by the Lindsey Wilson Concert Choir, all the texts were created first. They will perform: "Hold Fast Your Dreams," by Louise Driscoll; "Things That Never Die," by Charles Dickens; and "Anyway," which is attributed to Mother Teresa and appears on an engraving on the home for children in Calcutta, India.

"I especially have enjoyed teaching the Charles Dickens text," Chafin said. "Dickens has the most name recognition from his novels. But his poems are consistent with the focus of his novels. Dickens is a champion of the weak, the outcast and the oppressed."

Voice student Anna-Catherine Hook of Louisville, Ky., will sing Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening."

"While working on my research, I found more musical settings of this poem than any other poem I reviewed," Chafin said.

Rather than singing specific poetry written and later set to music, the Lindsey Wilson Singers will craft their own tone-poems: "Who Knows Where the Wind Blows," "The Forest," "Lightning" and "The Storm Is Passing Over."

"Four words form the basis of our interpretation of nature: wind, forest, lightning and storm," Chafin said.

The Lindsey Wilson choral ensembles will present "The Poets Sing: Musical Settings of Distinguished Poems" 7 p.m. CT Monday, Nov. 2, at Columbia Baptist Church. The concert is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Associate Professor of Music and Director of Choral Programs Gerald L. Chafin at chafing@lindsey.edu or (270) 384-8084.