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Dutch Mill Bulbs Fundraiser

Sale March 31—April 30

Here’s an environmentally friendly way to support BCS and beautify your garden! We have partnered with Dutch Mill Bulbs, Inc., a respected company located in Hershey, PA, to offer a selection of 18 popular spring-planting/summer-blooming flower bulbs and plants. The selections include Gladiolus, Lilies, Astilbe, Bleeding Hearts, Daylilies, and hanging basket kits – to name just a few.

Singers Needed

The Bloomington Chamber Singers is seeking additional members this semester, and announces an audition opportunity for experienced singers. We especially seek more altos, tenors, and basses. his spring's concert, on April 13 at 7:30 pm at St. Mark's United Methodist Church, will feature two twentieth-century choral works, both sung in Latin: Duruflé: Requiem and Poulenc: Stabat Mater.Singers should be available for rehearsals each Tuesday evening from 7 to 9:30 pm, with a few extra rehearsals as the concert approaches.Auditions will be held Tuesday, January 15 at Unitarian Universalist Church, 2120 North Fee Lane, from 5:30 to 6:30 pm. No appointments are necessary. Singers are encouraged to bring a prepared piece to sing, although that is not required; an accompanist will be provided.

Auditions for new singers

Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for new singers for its 2018-2019 season Tuesday, August 28th and Tuesday, September 4th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass.

Detailed information about upcoming auditions, next season's repertoire, and online sign-up for audition dates and times, can be found here.

Openings are available in all sections.

Auditions for our 2017-2018 season

Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for its 2017-2018 season Tuesday, September 5th and Tuesday, September 12th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass.

For detailed information about upcoming auditions, next season's repertoire, and online sign-up for audition dates and times, click here.

For more information, feel free to contact Gerry Sousa, the group's Music Director, at gerry@gsousa.com.

Auditions for our 2016-2017 season

Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for its 2016-2017 season Tuesday, August 30th and Tuesday, September 6th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass. Interested singers should have demonstrated experience in choral groups, have sung repertoire in a variety of languages in addition to English (typically Latin, German, and/or French), be able to follow a choral score, and be able to read a simple chorale or hymn. In addition, singers should be familiar with the basics of vocal production and techniques of singing in a choral ensemble. Singers are encouraged to bring a prepared piece to sing, although that is not required; an accompanist will be provided.For more information, feel free to contact Gerry Sousa, the group's Music Director, at gerry@gsousa.com.2016-2017 Audition Announcement

Auditions for our 2015-2016 seasonTuesday, September 1st and Tuesday, September 8th

Bloomington Chamber Singers will hold auditions for its 2015-2016 season Tuesday, September 1st and Tuesday, September 8th, from 5:30pm-7:00pm at the Universalist Unitarian Church, located at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass. Interested singers should have demonstrated experience in choral groups, have sung repertoire in a variety of languages in addition to English (typically Latin, German, and/or French), be able to follow a choral score, and be able to read a simple chorale or hymn. In addition, singers should be familiar with the basics of vocal production and techniques of singing in a choral ensemble. Singers are encouraged to bring a prepared piece to sing, although that is not required; an accompanist will be provided.For more information, feel free to contact Gerry Sousa, the group's Music Director, at gerry@gsousa.com.

Our 2014-2015 season

Our 2014-2015 season will open Saturday evening, November 15th, at 7:30pm in the First Presbyterian Church with a concert of 20th century French music. Included on the program will be Maurice Ravel's Trois Chansons, Francis Poulenc's Quatres petites prières de Saint François d'Assise and the composer's Huit Chansons Françaises. Also on the program are Gabriel Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine and Pavane, and Frank Martin's rarely-heard and delightful Chansons (1931).On December 14th, BCS once again will host a community sing-along of Part One and the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's beloved Messiah, a long-standing Bloomington holiday tradition.On Friday and Saturday, April 17th and 18th, 2015, Gerald Sousa will conduct the chorus and orchestra in Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem. We thank all of our friends, donors, sponsors, and singers past and present for making BCS the well-supported and respected organization it is. We hope to see you at our concerts this year!

Our 2013-2014 Season

Our 2013-2014 season includes the following repertoire:

DECEMBER 7 and 8, 2013
  • Ottorino Respighi's Laud to the Nativity
  • A selection of carols settings with orchestra by John Rutter and David Willcocks
  • Works about the season of winter by contemporary composers, including Giles Swayne, Arvo Pärt, Jonathan Harvey, Alexander Goehr, and Jonathan Dove

DECEMBER 22, 2013

  • Our 28th Annual Community Messiah Sing-Along (which attracts hundreds of singers each year)

APRIL 12-13, 2014

  • One of the first regional performances of Annelies, an oratorio composed in 2005 by the British composer James Whitbourn, with a libretto compiled by Melanie Challenger from The Diary of Anne Frank.

Bloomington Chamber Singers provides an opportunity for experienced singers to perform choral repertoire, including major works with orchestra, at a high level of musical excellence under the direction of a professional conductor.

Annual Community Messiah Sing

Now nearing its 24th year, this FREE Bloomington Christmas tradition draws hundreds of area singers (and listeners) who come together to sing Part One and the “Hallelujah Chorus” of Handel's beloved oratorio, Messiah. Conductor Gerald Sousa, now in his 24th year as Music Director/Conductor of Bloomington Chamber Singers, will lead the combined singers and a chamber orchestra.This year BCS will offer two opportunities to experience this great work:Sunday, December 9th, 2012 at 3pm at the First Presbyterian Church in Martinville; andSunday, December 9th, 2012 at 7pm at St. Mark's United Methodists Church in Bloomington.Admission is free, but please bring a canned good to contribute towards a local food bank donation.

Come Sing With Us! Auditions announced for 2012-2013 season...

Auditions for new singers: Tuesday, September 4th5:30-6:45pm Unitarian Universalist Church (at the corner of Fee Lane and the Bypass)

Chamber Singers, the area’s premier vocal ensemble, will hold auditions for new singers interested in joining our 70-voice choral ensemble, now entering its 43rd season.Principal concerts for 2012-2013 include:•    November 10,  2012:   MASSES AND MADRIGALS—THEN AND NOW

William Byrd    Mass for Five Voices  (c. 1595)Arvo Pärt    Missa syllabica  (1977)Claudio Monteverdi    Madrigals from Books I-VIII  (1587-1638)Morton Lauridsen    Six Madrigali on Italian Renaissance Poems  (1987)

•    December 8,  2012

Our 25th Annual MESSIAH SING

•    April,  2013

J.S. BACH:  MASS in B MINOR, BWV 232with the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra

BCS, a 70-voice mixed chorus, is open by audition to experienced choral singers of all ages.  Interested singers should bring a prepared piece to sing; an accompanist will be provided.  Openings are available in all sections.  For questions or additional information, contact the group's musical director, Gerry Sousa (director@chambersingers.info).

REVIEW: "Peace on Earth" (12/2/2011)

MUSIC REVIEW: BLOOMINGTON CHAMBER SINGERSVaried ‘Peace on Earth’ provided a revelation

By Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.comDecember 5, 2011
The program was titled “Peace on Earth, Music of the Season.” As given by the Bloomington Chamber Singers, it attracted a capacity crowd to the First United Methodist Church on Friday evening. And from pre-concert brass exhortations by the likes of Monteverdi, Palestrina, Praetorius and Gabrieli, all written about 400 years ago, to concert’s end, the last notes of the 20th century chorale “Friede auf Erden” (“Peace on Earth”) by Arnold Schoenberg, the music proved a revelation.The ensemble’s music director, Gerald Sousa, had pieced together a remarkably varied bill of fare that, nevertheless, as a package carried out the seasonal theme of “Peace on Earth.”As one listened to this well-trained local chorus of singers from all walks of life, a response of awe kept cropping up that 70 members, each busy with the concerns of professional and everyday existence, had devoted so much time and emotional energy to prepare this gift of music, while also getting ready for the annual “Messiah Sing” on Dec. 11 and a performance of Beethoven’s challenging “Missa Solemnis” next April.Credit their loyalty and credit Sousa, their committed leader. As a team, they once again rose to the occasion: first in more music by Praetorius, the familiar and favored “In dulci jubilo,” and Gabrieli, a soaring “O magnum mysterium” with countertenor Brennan Hall blending angelically from the balcony and, additionally, both an exultation (“Hodie Christus natus est,” “Today Christ is born”) and a benediction. The benediction, “In ecclesiis,” asked for solo contributions, here supplied by four sweetly-voiced guests from the Jacobs School: soprano Arwen Myers, tenor Asitha Tennekoon, bass-baritone Gavin Hayes, and, again, Hall.The concert’s first half concluded with one of Bach’s most admired cantatas, “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (“Awake, calls the voice to us”), a joyous work that brought well crafted and flexible sound from the chorus and notable contributions in arias and recitatives from Myers, Tennekoon and Hayes. Throughout, organist Gregory Geehern and varying combinations of instrumentalists completed scoring requirements.Geehern was particularly important in the post-intermission surprise, the “Son of God Mass,” written in 2001 by the British composer James Whitbourn, an astoundingly beautiful and intense composition that matches organ, chorus, and, of all things, soprano saxophone.The combination turned out to be magical. Supporting words of love, of happiness, of grief, of hope, the saxophone, much like a pure-voiced and passionate soprano, tonally beseeched, prayed and hauntingly raised emotional fervor. Keegan White, who makes his living as director of bands at Eastern Greene Schools, was nothing short of wonderful on his sax; his performance was flawless and penetratingly soulful.Guided by conductor Sousa, the Chamber Singers added hushes and hallelujahs reverentially and in adroit fashion.The concert ended with Schoenberg’s 1907 cry for a better world, “Friede auf Erden,” the composer’s last work shaped in the harmonic style that had suffused music for centuries. He would thereafter explore a 12-tone world. But this 10-minute cantata — close to lyrical when the focus in the text is on peace and good will, close to atonal when strife and evil hold sway — adheres, in both form and polyphony, to what for so long had been. Conductor, chorus and orchestra gave the work a sumptuous and stirring treatment.

 Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2011

REVIEW: Carmina Burana (4/17/ 2011)

MUSIC REVIEW: ‘CARMINA BURANA’Three musical groups team up for Orff workBy Peter Jacobi H-T Reviewer | pjacobi@heraldt.comApril 19, 2011, last update: 4/18 @ 10:28 pmWhen Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” premiered in 1937, it proved a sensation. The work’s emphasis on rhythm and simple harmonies, on attractive melodies and emotional gusto came as a pleasant surprise. Here was music that caught hold easily, so different from much of the classical music being written at the time.Orff’s “scenic cantata,” inspired by 13th century poems discovered at a Benedictine monastery in the Bavarian Alps, still has the power to evoke enthusiastic response. It certainly did so Sunday evening in the IU Auditorium when three Bloomington musical institutions — the Bloomington Chamber Singers, Camerata Orchestra and IU Children’s Choir — combined forces to give the piece a rousing, charged, let’s-give-it-all-we-got-and-then-some performance.Perhaps there was some roughness around the edges, but who could care when what one heard, under the knowing guidance of conductor Gerald Sousa, held such high levels of enthusiasm and ebullience. The poems are all about the fickleness and cruelty of fate, about springtime and desire and boozing and love from both the male and female perspective. The music blatantly echoes literary content. No one on stage seemed to forget that.The choristers, adult and young, strongly made their vocal case. The Camerata, what with two grand pianos and lots of timpani, underscored the merriment. The soloists, each in a different way, evoked theme deftly. Baritone Samuel Spade had the most to do, warbling, mooning and extolling on various matters, and doing so most effectively. Maria Izzo Walker used her delicate, sky-touching soprano with affecting purity to sing of love courtly and not so. Tenor Anthony Webb brought laughter with a vocally and theatrically unrestrained rendition of a swan being roasted on a spit and “catching sight of gnashing teeth.”As appetizer, Sousa and the Camerata played the Overture and Scherzo from incidental music Mendelssohn wrote for “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The performance was quite lovely but hardly necessary considering the musical stimulation that followed.Copyright: HeraldTimesOnline.com 2011

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Bloomington Chamber Singers
bcs@chambersingers.info