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The �����������ϳԹ� Singers are a group of people who are highly diverse in terms of their backgrounds, interests, and talents, but who are united in their love of singing and their dedication to the choral art. We build music through community, and build community through music. We perform music from a wide variety of traditions and locales — from Brahms to bluegrass, from Renaissance England to 21st-century New York. We pursue the highest musical standards, and we are committed to fostering an environment that is welcoming and supportive for each and every member. 

The Singers have an exciting year planned for 2024–25.  They will be performing three concerts in February with a professional period-instrument ensemble, the Lyra Baroque Orchestra, in �����������ϳԹ�, Rochester, and Minneapolis.  This will be their fifth collaboration with this outstanding ensemble.  They are also planning a spring-break tour to New Orleans. 

Schedule your audition for the �����������ϳԹ� Singers.

Past Seasons

The 2024–25 Season

We had a rewarding year of choral music in 2024–25: We prepared three distinct concert programs that included four major works, completed a successful and enjoyable tour, and offered fourteen public performances overall.  The first order of business in September was to build our team, so we started things off with a fall retreat at the College’s nearby CERA nature preserve. It was a chance to enjoy the outdoors together, to get to know each other, to sing, of course, and to reflect about the coming year and how we might best work together in the months to come.  We also followed our tradition and observed the equinox sunrise through the two towers on either side of Mac Field — such a great way to mark the passage of time together. After just three weeks of rehearsal, we performed a concert at We Are Family Weekend in late September. 

Our November concert featured some of the music that would form the core of our spring concert, including a group of pieces grouped under the heading “songs of earth” — highly contrasted works that consider our relationship to the earth and homeland in different ways.  One of the most striking of these works was Alex Berko’s a piece that transforms the way we think about the living spaces that surround us. Other distinctive pieces in this concert include “Reveille,” by the Soviet-era composer Gyorgii Sviridov, which involved a meditative solo for baritone, and two soloists situated off stage evoking the sound of bugles blowing reveille, and a rousing gospel version of Handel’s “Hallelujah” Chorus, with piano, drum set, and electric bass, conducted by Assistant Director Jadyn Al-Fatah ’27. 

In December, we joined forces with the �����������ϳԹ� Oratorio Society to perform a special concert featuring Reena Esmail’s and J. S. Bach’s splendid Magnificat in D Major.  We were so fortunate to have the resources to organize this ambitious project, which brought numerous professional musicians to campus.  Indian-American composer Reena Esmail’s This Love Between Us explores the theme of unity through a powerful interplay of musical styles and sacred texts. This seven-movement piece highlights the teachings of seven major religious traditions in India — Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam — illustrating how each tradition approaches unity, brotherhood, and compassion. Esmail bridges Western classical music and Indian musical traditions by incorporating the sitar and tabla into a choral and orchestral arrangement. The musicians blend their unique expertise, creating a harmonious meeting of two musical cultures. For our concert, we had two fabulous professional musicians playing sitar and tabla, and the composer flew to �����������ϳԹ� from California to meet with the choir and give us insights into her work. 

This Love Between Us created a beautiful meeting of cultures, and the message of the work was so inspiring.  It can be summed up in the final lines of the work, which features the words of Rumi, repeated like a mantra over affirming phrases from each of the seven religions, as they wash over one another: “Religions are many, God is one. The lamps are different, but the Light is the same: it comes from Beyond. Concentrate on the Essence. Concentrate on the Light.” The Esmail was a delight, but this abundant concert also included another substantial work,  which features flourishing high trumpets and exuberant, highly decorated melodies for all sections of the choir.  This was a proud moment for the choirs at �����������ϳԹ�.

Our spring break tour took us to Minneapolis, Madison, Chicago, Saint Louis, and Davenport. The trip included a  in Wisconsin. Yonu Cha, a �����������ϳԹ� alumna, had visited the cave and  by singing one of the pieces from her time with the �����������ϳԹ� Singers.  In an email, she suggested to Professor Rommereim that we bring the choir to sing a concert in the cave — and we made it happen!  You can read a little more about it in a article about the event.  Overall, it was such a pleasure to travel together, to have so many shared experiences, to make music together each day, and to hear how our interpretation of the rich music we were performing matured with each concert. 

One special aspect of our concert that distinguished this tour was our collaboration with the professional Hindustani musicians Sutanu Sur, on tabla, and Shreekant Shah, on sitar.  These fine musicians joined us for the first three concerts in Minneapolis, Madison, and Chicago as we performed movements from This Love Between Us. What a privilege it was to collaborate with them, and to learn about the Hindustani tradition as we melded our voices with their artistry.  Another very special feature of our concert was the brilliant singing of our first-year student from India, Adyasha Anindita ’28, who performed solos with the choir so capably in the Hindustani tradition.  We were blessed with so much talent among the first-year students. Three other first-years in the choir also performed with the ensemble on instruments: Sarah Reif ’28 on cello, Abbie Elsbernd ’28 on oboe, and James Applegate ’28 on cello. 

At each of our concerts, we sang “O My Love is Like a Red Red Rose” in a circle, surrounding the audience, which reliably moved members of the audience to tears.  And during that song, at the final tour concert, we surprised the fifteen seniors in the ensemble by offering each of them a rose.  It was a beautiful gesture and an emotionally intense, memorable moment. Yet another beautiful moment on the tour was our visit with Edith Renfrow Smith ’37 in Chicago, �����������ϳԹ�'s oldest alumna at age 109, and �����������ϳԹ�’s first female Black graduate.  What a privilege to spend time in the presence of this inspiring person. 

Following the tour, we got busy preparing another completely different concert: Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem and Benjamin Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb. We were accompanied by the college organist, Michael Elsbernd, who performed on the mighty Aeolian-Skinner organ in Herrick Chapel.   The Duruflé featured two outstanding baritone soloists from the �����������ϳԹ� Singers, senior Beau Leavenworth ’25 and first-year Nathan Ruger ’28. Duruflé's Requiem is a majestic piece that is largely based on noble and ancient Gregorian chant melodies.  (Here’s a  Beau Leavenworth’s solo begins at 1:37.)  Britten's Rejoice in the Lamb is a setting of the quirky and brilliant 18th-century poet Christopher Smart. Smart expands the circle of community beyond the human and into the animal realm. The central theme is summed up with the line, “Let man and beast appear before him [God] and magnify his name together.” It includes a delightful movement dedicated to the poet’s cat, Geoffrey, sung by soprano soloist Quinby Raney ’27, as well as a movement focusing on a mouse who stands up to the cat courageously, sung by alto soloist and �����������ϳԹ� Singers President Valeria Woodard ’25. Tenor Ben Curran ’25 and bass Evan Albaugh ’25 also performed solos admirably in their final performance with the choir.

Before concluding this summary, a few words about fundraising. We were fortunate to be able to pursue our tour this year with the help of a significant donation from alumna Pam Rogacki as well as other generous gifts. The tour is an expensive proposition, and with inflation, it continues to become more costly. We have not emphasized fund-raising in previous years, but recently we have come to realize that we won’t be able to continue to pursue these ambitious programs — with week-long spring-break tours and high-profile guest artists that so greatly enhance the experience — without a steady stream of financial support.  Regan Reedy ’26, this year’s tour manager, did an outstanding job of organizing the tour. Building on the excellent work of the 2024 tour organizer, Syd Weller ’26, Regan took the tour to new heights and helped us to set things on a professional footing.  With Regan’s leadership, and with the help of many other members of the choir, we now have a tour organization that is set to continue ongoing fund-raising efforts that will help to put the tour on a more secure footing in the future.  As we move forward, we are developing a number of paid student positions for the choir that provide excellent opportunities for students to gain experience in event planning, promotion, fund-raising, and a variety of other areas.  These positions will help the choir flourish, and at the same time, they wil