Life begins at 50! 
Our journey so far
and our hopes for the future

(A few of the composers, poets, and performers on this program are pictured below.
Scroll to the bottom of this screen for a full description of this concert.)

Sunday, June 4, 2023 – St. Paul’s Lutheran, Doylestown

Thomas Lloyd and Susan Johnson, conductors
Narration written by Christopher Whitney and read by Colin Jenei
Timothy Harrell, accompanist

Part I: What kind of music do we love to sing?

Greetings: Hark I hear the harps eternal  - arr. Alice Parker

 Classical masterworks: Sanctus, from Requiem - Maurice Duruflé

 American songbook: All the things you are – Jerome Kern, arr. Roy Ringwald

 From the English Court to Broadway: Singing as a life-long activity

 Now is the Month of Maying - Thomas Morley, arr. Kirby Shaw
The Village Voices of Pine Run, Susan Johnson, director

Love, I hear, from A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum – Stephen Sondheim
Jackson Manning, 2023 Voices of the Future first prize winner

Opera:  March of the Toreadors, from Carmen – Georges Bizet  

Spirituals and Sacred Jazz:

O Send out thy light, from Of Journeys and Refuge – Jay Fluellen
with guest pianist Jay Fluellen (BCCS commission, 2011)

Ain’t got time to die – Hall Johnson
Jane Kamp, soloist

Intermission

Part II: What kind of community do we seek to build?

A Community of Voices:

I have had singing – Steven Sametz 

        Life, Death, and Cats – text by Emily Fulmer; music by John Conahan (premiere)

1.     A Watermelon Summer
2.     Those We Love Don’t Go Away
3.     Calico Cats
4.     Eulogy for Julianne
Debbie DiMicco, soloist

Connecting with communities of voices around the world:

 Estonia: Rukkivihud rehe all (Estonia) - Peep Sarapik

Cuba: Tu sangre en la mia – text by Pablo Neruda, music by Shawn L. Kirchner

Connecting with our local music community:

              Cordus Mundi: “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime - Ahrens & Flaherty  

Trusting our neighbors / building inclusive community: Into the light - Robert Maggio

Together into the future: Make our Garden Grow, from Candide – Leonard Bernstein
(combined choirs) 

The Bucks County Choral Society will conclude its 50th Anniversary Season with a concert on Sunday, June 4 at 4:00pm at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in Doylestown. Entitled Life begins at 50 - Our journey so far and our hopes for the future, the highlight of the program will be a newly commissioned work by composer John Conahan and poet Emily Fulmer. The 17-minute work, entitled Life, Death, & Cats, is in four movements, with emotions ranging from playfulness to affection to sorrow, all related to the poet’s memories of her childhood, her calico cat, and her beloved sister Julianne.

The remainder of the program will reflect the remarkable stylistic range and variety of the choir’s repertoire over its fifty-year span, from beloved classics such as the Sanctus from the Duruflé Requiem and the sacred jazz of composer Jay Fluellen (present to accompany his own piece), to standards arranged for Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, popular selections from opera and musical theater, African American Spirituals, and favorites from international choir tours to Estonia and Cuba.

The program will also feature a performance by Jackson Manning of Central Bucks West High School, the most recent winner of the choir’s “Voices of the Future” competition. Manning will sing Sondheim’s “Love, I hear” with Choral Society accompanist Timothy Harrell at the piano. Other choirs closely connected to the Choral Society will also be featured, including the men’s vocal ensemble Cordus Mundi, and the Village Voices of Pine Run, led by Susan Johnson, Assistant Conductor and director of the Choral Society’s “Singing for Seniors” program.

John Conahan is a composer and conductor whose vocal works have been commissioned and performed by a wide range of ensembles and soloists such as The Crossing, Lyric Fest, Denyce Graves, and Deborah Voigt. His works have been published by Hal Leonard and Boosey & Hawkes, and a collection of his complete art songs has been published by E. C. Schirmer.

Emily Fulmer is native of St. Louis and a graduate of Pennsbury High School. She is a woman with Down Syndrome for whom writing poetry has long been a creative outlet in her life. Her talents became known to the Choral Society through some of the choir’s singers who were either parents of developmentally disabled children, or professional caregivers for disabled persons. The choir felt that such a commission would represent an important part of the Choral Society’s mission of inclusion and connection to our community.

Artistic Director Thomas Lloyd will conclude the program with two choir and audience favorites. He will begin by conducting Lambertville composer Robert Maggio’s 2008 anthem Into the Light, affirming the struggle of gay persons to accept their own identity and share it with the world and conclude with Leonard Bernstein’s aspirational “Make our garden grow” from Candide.

The program will be 90 minutes long with intermission.