Lincoln-Way Area Chorale to commemorate 30th anniversary with New Lenox concert performances
LEGACY: Honoring the Past, Looking to the Future will be performed April 25 and 26 at The United Methodist Church of New Lenox.
'This is just wonderful. I am so excited that we're celebrating everything that the group has been and what we're going to be,' said Elisé L. Greene, artistic director of Lincoln-Way Area Chorale.
Kim Kalnins contacted Charles 'Chuck' Stark in 1995 when the Mokena Community Park District was looking to sponsor a community choir for Lincoln-Way High School alumni who still wanted to sing together.
Stark, who retired in 1991 after 25 years as Lincoln-Way's chorale director, agreed to direct an adult community chorale if there was a large enough turnout to make it worthwhile, according to the chorale's website. More than 70 people showed up to the first rehearsal.
The group, which went on to become an independent 501(c)(3) organization, honors its history with a concert including 'All My Trials' and 'The Last Words of David' to honor Stark, who was the chorale's artistic director until 2012.
'Before the pandemic there was a dedication for the auditorium at Lincoln-Way Central where he had taught for a million years it seems. He was still alive and he requested those pieces for the dedication so I knew that those were a couple of his favorites,' said Greene, of Tinley Park.
LEGACY features 'Embraceable You' and 'All I Ask of You' from 'The Phantom of the Opera,' two favorites of Gregory Day, who was artistic director from 2012 to 2018. He is scheduled to attend both performances and will guest conduct 'All I Ask of You.'
The program also includes 'With a Voice of Singing,' 'Sogno di Volare' from the video game 'Civilization VI,' Rachel Platten's 'Fight Song,' 'This Is Me' from 'The Greatest Showman' and 'We Don't Talk About Bruno' from Disney's 'Encanto.'
'Knowing that I needed to look to the future as well as where we are now, they needed a bunch of contemporary type of pieces to fill in and even out some of those that are heavy pieces or very traditional,' Greene said. 'I really like to get a big variety of styles and genres.'
The women of the choir will sing 'Warrior,' which was composed by Kim Baryluk, a founding member of Canadian folk group The Wyrd Sisters, and is about a rash of murders of women killed in Winnipeg, Canada, because of domestic violence.
'She wrote this very poignant piece about women speaking up for other women,' Greene said. 'It's just a really gripping, beautiful piece.'
LEGACY will feature Jason Randall of Naperville filling in for Lincoln-Way Area Chorale's accompanist, Jeremy Landig, who is committed to 'Ride the Cyclone – The Musical' from April 25 to May 4 at Lewis University's Philip Lynch Theatre in Romeoville.
Other instrumentalists at the concert will include electric bassist Clifford Hunt, a string teacher in Joliet, and drummer Mike Carlson of Oak Forest.
'It's become a choir family and it's not just people coming together to sing but they care about each other. So many of them have become really dear friends,' said Greene, whose husband, Gordon Greene, became a Lincoln-Way Area Chorale member in 2018 when she began leading the group.
Interspersed throughout the concert will be video interviews with chorale alumnus Peggy Stark, who will be in attendance to represent her late husband, founding director Charles Stark; previous artistic director Day; and some Lincoln-Way Area Chorale charter members.
Singers who have been with the choir since its inception are Sue Albor, Sylvia Bergman and Ken Reed, of Frankfort; Cara Gibbons, of Crete; Heather Goesel, of Naperville; Toni Miller, Dorothy Peterson and Donna Roesel of Mokena; Diane Turnbough and Vivian Van Donk, of New Lenox; and James Wahl, of Tinley Park.
'That the group has been together for this long, I think that is really fantastic,' Elisé L. Greene said. 'We have built our numbers back up. We have almost 90 singers and that is great because there are groups that didn't make it through the pandemic.'
The concert will conclude with 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' a favorite of many Lincoln-Way Area Chorale members, an invite for past members to join the onstage performance.
'I would really like to encourage anyone that has ever been in the choir to come to the concert,' Greene said.
The United Methodist Church of New Lenox is not only the location for LEGACY but also the place where Lincoln-Way Area Chorale rehearses on Monday nights.
'It has awesome acoustics. It really does. There are very few churches around that have enough space at the front of the building for a group our size to actually be there. This one does so that's wonderful,' Greene said.
There is a variety of ages in Lincoln-Way Area Chorale.
'We have people that are in their early 20s and people that are in their 80s, and they can sit together. You don't find that very often where they have something in common,' Greene said. 'That's their love of music and that's really a remarkable thing.'
A non-audition choir, Lincoln-Way Area Chorale has members ranging from music teachers to people who come in hardly reading music at all.
'It's just a bond that you make with these people that you're with. It's very rewarding and it's very unique. Being able to share that with audiences also is really incredible,' Greene said.
Concert tickets are available for chorale sponsors and patrons to purchase and will go on sale to the public on April 1.
When: 7:30 p.m. April 25; 3 p.m. April 26
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