GRAFTON — The 95-voice River Singers, led by Mary Cay Brass, are celebrating their 25th anniversary of singing together with a spring concert on Saturday, May 13, at 7:30 p.m., at the White Church.
Special guest conductor Dr. Kathy Bullock, from Berea College in Kentucky, will lead the choir in a set of rousing, poignant songs from the African-American spirituals and gospel traditions.
Over the years, The River Singers have been fortunate to host choirs and teachers from many musical traditions. Among them have been the Boys Choir of Kenya, the Zedashe Ensemble from the Republic of Georgia, and the Christminster Singers from England, as well as singers and musicians from around the world and American singers from the Appalachian and African-American gospel traditions.
This 25th anniversary year will be the seventh time the group has hosted Bullock, who teaches ethnomusicology and African-American music and leads the 80-voice Black Music ensemble at Berea College. She has also designed study abroad programs in Ghana, Zimbabwe, and Jamaica.
In this concert, the choir will celebrate sacred music from many world traditions: two hauntingly beautiful Islamic chants from Bosnia and Afghanistan, a lovely Hebrew “Blessing,” and two songs from the early New England shape note repertoire.
The group will also sing “The Blue Green Hills of Earth,” - an ode from Paul Winter's Missa Gaia - with saxophonist Bill Ballard and pianist Andy Davis, and songs from the Balkans, where director Mary Cay Brass had a Fulbright Scholarship and leads Village Harmony music camps.
Rounding out the concert will be songs of peace, hope, resistance, and an epic South African song with a complex dance that all 95 singers have mastered.
The concert is a benefit for the CONTACT Program (Conflict Transformation Across Cultures) at SIT in Brattleboro.
In gratitude for the benefit, the CONTACT Program invites one singer from the choir to attend on scholarship. This year's recipient is tenor John Bouffard.