Choir and ensemble present spring concert
Legacy Ensemble is a fine arts elective for students in 10th grade through 12th grade who meet twice a week to prepare concerts for various community outreach events.
The 90-voice Coshocton Community Choir and 18-member Legacy Christian School Ensemble will hold a spring concert called Do Not Be Afraid on Sunday, April 21 at 6 p.m. in the Dover First Moravian Church. The concert will feature selections of sacred and secular choral music including arrangements and settings of familiar hymns, classical works, spirituals and more.
Now in its 53rd season, the Coshocton Community Choir was organized in 1971 by Director Charles R. Snyder. Since its founding more than 900 singers have participated with the group. Snyder, who received his musical training at Capital University, studied with people such as Fred Waring, Norman Luboff and John Rutter.
“The words 'do not be afraid' are found more than 300 times in scripture,” Snyder said. “These words from the angel remind us that even in the times when the changes are overwhelming and we feel uncertain, God is still in charge.”
Concert selections include a new song for the choir, Morten Lauridsen’s “Sure on This Shining Night,” as well as special settings of familiar sacred tunes such as St. Theodulph’s “All Glory, Laud and Honor,” “Lord of the Dance,” “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” “Lamb of God,” “Come to the Water,” and “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.”
The choir will share classic works such as “Lift Up Your Heads” from George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” and Karl Heinrich Graun’s setting of “Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs.”
Snyder said the final features will be Michael Card’s “I Will Bring You Home” with soprano soloist Sarah Heading, Philip W.J. Stopford’s “Do Not Be Afraid” and “Thy Will Be Done,” as well as renditions of “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Music in the Air” and more. The choir will conclude the concert with F. Melius Christiansen’s setting of “Beautiful Savior” and Peter Lutkin’s “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.”
“Last year’s concert at the Dover church was such a success we really felt we couldn’t miss coming back this year,” Snyder said.
Director Franklin Miller describes Legacy Christian School as an Anabaptist K-12 school focusing on training students in four areas: academic excellence, music appreciation, Anabaptist worldview and spiritual growth.
“We teach choral music at all grade levels,” Miller said, “Legacy Ensemble is a fine arts elective for students from grades 10-12 who meet twice a week to prepare concerts for various community outreach events. In keeping with Anabaptist tradition, we present mostly a cappella music.”
Originally from Minerva, Miller spent 10 years working in a Romanian orphanage, where his choir sang every Sunday. Back in the United States, he received his music degree from Kent State University and has since conducted the Minerva Community Choir, Voice of Light Chorale, the Ohio Men’s Choral Festival, Kent State Chorus and Oasis Chorale. He is currently teaching fifth grade through 12th grade music and choir at Legacy Christian School, directing the Zollikon Community Chorus, conducting the Ohio Men’s Choral Festival and is an instructor at the Shenandoah Christian Music Camp. As a chorister he has sung with various choirs and served as the East Central chair for the Ohio Choral Directors Association.
The ensemble will present “Magnificat,” “Come to Zion,” “Every Time I Feel the Spirit,” “Slipping Through My Fingers” and “Children of the Heavenly Father.”
Miller said, “I’m humbled when I see how well my students perform on their own with their own perspectives.”
Dover First Moravian is at 319 N. Walnut St. There is no charge for the concert, but a freewill offering will be taken for the visiting choirs.