Lindenwood Concert Choir, Voices-Only ensemble, and the University Chorus will all perform in a Fall Concert titled Turning Singing the Darkness into Light.

Pamela Grooms, the Director of Choral Services at Lindenwood, said that the performance will be held on Nov. 15 at 7:30 p.m. at the J. Scheidegger Center for the Arts. 

“This concert is a little bit different than some of the concerts I’ve done before,” Grooms said. “It has a theme and it kind of has an arc. We have a speaker, Dr. Nicole Torbinski, who is our chaplain here at the University, who is going to kind of narrate and MC the concert and so she’s got some readings and some introductions to kind of tie the music together. The concert is called Singing the Darkness to Light. It starts out dark, angry, and sad, and then it ends with joy.”

Grooms said that the concert is open to the public with a five-dollar ticket charge. Students are eligible to get two free tickets for the event through the Box Office. 

 “We were very conscious in planning this concert to include a lot of diversity,” Grooms said. “Diverse composers, diverse music, languages, there is a little tribute to Hispanic, Asian, and Black Americans in this. I think it has a message that everybody needs to hear.”

Grooms directs all three performing choirs and has been planning the set-up for this concert since the summer, and said that it took about a month-and-a-half for the ‘vision’ to come together.

Voices-Only and Concert Choir require auditions for admission but the University Chorus is open to not only Lindenwood students but those in the community. The Fall Concert is the culmination of the semester’s work as the choirs host a concert at the end of each semester.

“We have Concert Choir which is our audition art music choir, University Chorus is kind of a ‘y’all come,’ non-audition choir but it’s held in the evenings,” Grooms said. “We also include some high school students and a lot of community members, so it’s a choir of about 50 people, mostly community members, and then we have Voices–Only which is the traveling premiere acapella ensemble of the university.”

Grooms said that the concerts have been hosted yearly since before she began working at Lindenwood 16 years ago.

Samantha Strieker, a junior in the University Chorus, joined the University Chorus this semester after being involved in ensembles from high school. 

Strieker said that the preparation for the concert began at the beginning of the semester during the first week of classes and has allowed her to feel prepared to perform.

“I think [the theme is] very relevant to everything that’s going on today,” Strieker said. “I’d say that we’ve seen a lot of darkness in the past couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of bad things happen, that’s from like any perspective that you could possibly think of it.”

Strieker said that the director, Professor Grooms, has tried not to affiliate the concert with any other holidays or themes so that everyone can feel like they can relate to the pieces performed.

“I think it’s a good way to see that we can get happiness from stuff and we can get the light back,” Strieker said. “I think we’re kind of seeing maybe some of that come back now, so I think it’s very relatable.”