The Grove City College orchestra program returns to live, in-person performance later this month with a Fall Concert featuring the Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestras and the Wind Ensemble and a Sept. 11 tribute.
The College’s Touring Choir will join the orchestra to honor first responders, servicemembers and those who lost their lives in the attacks at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 1 in Ketler Auditorium of the Pew Fine Arts Center on campus.
“This concert is a combination of ‘we are back’ to live performances and a recognition of the 20th anniversary of 9/11,” said Dr. Jeffrey M. Tedford ’00, chair of the Department of Music and director of Orchestras. “I am very honored to have the Touring Choir join us for this concert and combine the forces of symphonic and choral music to pay tribute to those who have sacrificed so much for our country.”
The concert is the first live show presented for the public since February 2020, just before the coronavirus pandemic began. The student musicians and their instructors spent much of the last year and a half preparing concerts for live streaming, pre-recorded videos and reduced audiences. Students are excited to welcome their families and friends to campus to hear their hard work.
The concert will include the Overture from Candide by Leonard Bernstein and the first movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 “Eroica.” “These works celebrate the excitement of live performance and the classical nature of the music program at Grove City College,” Tedford said.
The Chamber Orchestra will perform several movements from Benjamin Britten’s “Simple Symphony” and “It Is Well” by Philip Bliss, arranged by Matt Riley.
The Symphony Orchestra will perform two works with the Touring Choir in honor of the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks: “Hymn to the Fallen,” from the movie “Saving Private Ryan” and “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
Dr. Katherine E. Mueller, associate professor of Music, directs the choir.
The concert is free and open to the public. The College requires all visitors to campus to follow Covid-19 mitigation guidelines in place on the date of the event. It will also be livestreamed at www.gcc.edu/livestream.
For more information about Music at Grove City College, visit gcc.edu/music.