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When: 7 p.m. Sunday
Where: Lutheran Church of the Master, 2617 S. 114th St.
Tickets: $10; available at www.singomaha.com/
Sing Omaha has emerged as one of the city’s great musical success stories of 2009.
In just the past year, the group has expanded from three choirs to seven.
All seven choirs will present a Christmas concert Sunday at Lutheran Church of the Master. Tuesday, two of the group’s adult choirs will perform at the Star Wars Concert at Qwest Center Omaha.
“We’re going to be singing in full force next week,” said Matt Hill, the group’s founder.
Sing Omaha evolved from a single adult choir called Canticum, an ad hoc group that primarily existed to perform the music of former University of Nebraska at Omaha choral conductor and composer Randall Stroope.
Hill, one of Stroope’s former students, took over Canticum in 2006 after Stroope left the university.
Hill incorporated Canticum into a new organization — Sing Omaha — and began adding choirs. Its seven choruses now provide education and performance opportunities to singers ranging in age from kindergarten to adult.
Hill leads the two adult choruses – Canticum and Eclectica. Both will perform at the Star Wars Concert. Canticum is composed primarily of professional singers and musicians. Eclectica was designed for singers with busy nonmusic careers.
Hill, who serves as director of worship and music at Living Grace Lutheran Church, also conducts Harmonia, a female chorus for high school-age singers.
Four other choirs provide training for children in east and west Omaha.
The choruses Sono Via East and Sono Via West provide kids in kindergarten through third grade with training in singing in tune through simple unison, two-part and round-style songs. Karen Benson and Nicole Chapman, both Millard school district music teachers and singers in Canticum, lead the East and West choirs.
Lynda Laird, a Bellevue Public Schools music teacher, and Laura Kazmierski, a Millard music teacher, lead the Cantate East and Cantate West, which train fourth- through seventh-grade singers.
Sunday’s concert will be the first time all seven choruses perform together. The performance will also feature Palladium Brass.
“We’re all going to make a glorious sound,” said Hill.
Contact the writer:
444-1076, john.pitcher@owh.com
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