Music Department and Music Center Concerts
Jessica Bennett, violin & Brook Bennett, cello, with Luke & Mary Rose Norell, piano
Where: Rieth Recital Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students
Sun, Oct 01st @ 4:00 pm — Rieth Recital Hall
Four Community School of the Arts faculty members will join together for a concert of chamber music in Rieth Recital Hall. Violinist Jessica Bennett will be joined by her husband, cellist Brook Bennett in performances with Luke Norell and Mary Rose Norell, piano.
The program will feature performances of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2 C minor, Op. 66, Gabriel Faure’s Cello Sonata, and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 1.
2017 Homecoming Music Gala
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $8 general admission
Sat, Oct 07th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
Part of Goshen College’s 2017 Homecoming activities, the Homecoming Music Gala is your first opportunity to hear the Goshen College ensembles. Performing will be the Goshen College Chamber Choir and Men’s Chorus, directed by Scott Hochstetler; Women’s World Music Choir, directed by Debra Detwiler; and the Symphony Orchestra, conducted by José Rocha.
“Treble Fest” Women’s Choir Festival Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students
Tue, Oct 10th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
The Goshen College Women’s World Music Choir, directed by Debra Detwiler, will be joined by two high school women’s choral ensembles for a day of choral workshops for treble voices, culminating in a festival concert in Sauder Concert Hall.
Joining the GC women will be women’s choirs from Northfield High School, Manchester High School, and Goshen High School. The ensembles will perform individually and as a joint chorus.
Goshen College Combined Choirs and Orchestra
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $11 adults, $8 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Fri, Oct 27th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
The Goshen College choral and instrumental ensembles will join forces for gala performance in Sauder Concert Hall! The Combined Choirs, directed by Debra Detwiler and Scott Hochstetler, will perform with the Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of José Rocha, for a concert that will include the last movement of Ludiwig van Beethoven’s eponymous Symphony No. 9 “Choral.”
Goshen College Chamber Choir
Where: Rieth Recital Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students
Tue, Nov 07th @ 7:30 pm — Rieth Recital Hall
The Goshen College Chamber Choir, directed by Scott Hochstetler, will present the world premiere of a new work for choir by composer Bruce Trinkley, with text by poet and GC almunus Julia Spicher Kasdorf in concert in the Goshen College Music Center’s Rieth Recital Hall.
The new work, titled “Mennonite Songs,” features settings of poetry by Goshen College alumnus Kasdorf, for SATB choir, solo voices, and piano. The texts are from Kasdorf’s collections The Sleeping Preacher and Poetry in America. Trinkley and Kasdorf will be in attendance at the concert, with both speaking before the concert. Kasdorf will also read from her poetry.
“Mennonite Songs” was composed by Trinkley during a residency at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico, in Taos and was completed in April of 2012. This concert will be the first ever public performance of this work.
Poet, essayist, and editor Julia Spicher Kasdorf was born in Lewistown, Pennsylvania. Educated at Goshen College, she earned a BA, an MA in creative writing, and a PhD from New York University.
Kasdorf’s lyrical poems, steeped in her family’s Mennonite background, explore faith, social justice, and cultural inheritance. In an interview with Melissa Beattie-Moss, Kasdorf described how motherhood has affected the concerns of her poetry, noting, “You’re both incredibly drawn to the small and the domestic, and you’re also suddenly very sensitive to matters of the world. Your attention is pulled urgently in two directions.”
Kasdorf’s poetry collections include Eve’s Striptease (1998); Sleeping Preacher (1992), which won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize and the Great Lakes Colleges Association Award for New Writing; and Poetry in America (2011). She is also the author of the essay collection The Body and the Book: Writing from a Mennonite Life (2001) and the biography Fixing Tradition: Joseph W. Yoder, Amish American (2002).
The poetry editor for Christianity and Literature, Kasdorf also co-edited, with Michael Tyrell, Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn (2007). With Joshua R. Brown, she edited a restored edition of J.W. Yoder’s Rosanna of the Amish (2008). Kasdorf has received a Pushcart Prize as well as grants and fellowships from the Pennsylvania Arts Council and the Fetzer Institute. Her poems have often been featured on Garrison Keillor’s National Public Radio program The Writer’s Almanac.
She has taught at Pennsylvania State University, the University of Pittsburgh, and New York University, and lives in Pennsylvania.
The music of Bruce Trinkley has been performed in the United States, Europe, Australia, South America and China. He has composed incidental music, songs and choruses for theatre and dance productions and has written extensively for choral ensembles, including more than 200 arrangements of folk songs, spirituals and popular songs for various ensembles. In 1976 he collaborated on The Wagon Train Show, which played more than 2000 performances during the Bicentennial. Santa Rosalia, a cantata inspired by paintings of Fernando Botero, was filmed for PBS. Mountain Laurels, a choral symphony using texts by Pennsylvania poets, was written to celebrate the centenary of State College, Pennsylvania, in 1996. Cold Mountain, a piano trio, was commissioned by the Castalia Trio for their concert tour of China in May 1998. His opera Eve’s Odds won the National Opera Association’s 1999 Chamber Opera Competition. Cleo, a comic opera about the making of the movie epic Cleopatra, won the competition in 2001.
Recent works include The Last Voyage of Captain Meriwether Lewis, a cantata for men’s voices; One Life: The Rachel Carson Project, a multi-media work for women’s chorus, soloists, and instrumental ensemble; and York: the Voice of Freedom, a music drama about the life of the only African American on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. His operas for young people include The Prairie Dog That Met the President and Chicken Little.
He has had composer residencies at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Hambidge Center, the Ucross Foundation, and the Patrick Allan-Fraser Trust in Scotland. His works are published by Alliance, Alfred Music, Oxford University Press, Augsburg Fortress, Lawson-Gould, GIA, Hinshaw, Hal Leonard and Yelton Rhodes.
All-Campus Band & Lavender Jazz Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students
Multiple Dates — Sauder Concert Hall
Goshen College’s wind ensembles will again present a joint concert in Sauder Concert Hall. Performing will be the Goshen College All-Campus Band, conducted by José Rocha, a symphonic wind ensemble open to GC students, faculty, and staff members; and Lavender Jazz, Goshen College’s big band, directed by Chris French. Each ensemble will present one half of the concert.
2nd Annual Men’s Choir Festival Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students. Goshen College faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Fri, Feb 02nd @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
The Goshen College Men’s Chorus will welcome men’s choirs from Goshen High School and Bethany Christian Schools, as well as local ensemble The Open Fifths for a day of workshops, culminating in an evening Festival Concert in Sauder Concert Hall. The ensembles will perform individually and as a joint festival chorus. The GC Men’s Chorus is directed by Scott Hochstetler.
Winter Choral Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Sat, Feb 10th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
The Goshen College Choirs will present their Winter Choral Concert in Sauder Concert Hall. Performing are the Goshen College Chamber Choir, Women’s World Music Choir, and Men’s Chorus. The Choirs are directed by Scott Hochstetler and Debra Detwiler.
58th Annual Concerto-Aria Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $11 adults, $8 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Sat, Feb 17th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
Student winners of the 58th annual Goshen College Concerto-Aria Competition will perform in Sauder Concert Hall with the Goshen College Symphony Orchestra, directed by José Rocha.
Student winners are:
- Lukas Thompson, baritone voice (“It Is Enough” from Elijah — Felix Mendelssohn)
- Joshua Liechty, baritone voice (“Look, Through the Port” from Billy Budd — Benjamin Britten)
- Mark Kreider, pianist (Piano Concerto No. 1, mvt. 1 — Sergei Rachmaninov)
- Anne Buckwalter, pianist (Piano Concerto No. 1, mvt. 1 — Ludwig van Beethoven)
- Monica Miller, violinist (Intro and Rondo Capriccioso — Camille Saint-Saëns)
- Tyrus Tucker, percussion (Concerto for Marimba and Strings — Emmanuel Sejourne)
Solomia Soroka, violin & Matthew Hill, piano
Where: Rieth Recital Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Fri, Feb 23rd @ — Rieth Recital Hall
Goshen College faculty members Solomia Soroka, violin & Matthew Hill, piano will present a faculty recital of works for violin and piano in Rieth Recital Hall.
Soroka and Hill will present a concert of American music for violin and piano, including the Sonata in D Major by Rossetter G. Cole, Virtuoso Etudes on Themes by George Gershwin by Earl Wild, Suite for Violin and Piano by William Grant Still, and Selections from Porgy & Bess by Jascha Heifetz.
Violinist Solomia Soroka, DMA, born in L’viv, Ukraine, is among the most accomplished Ukrainian musicians of her generation. She won top prizes in three prestigious international violin competitions held in the former Soviet Union – the Prokofiev, Lysenko, and Zolota Osin’ competitions. Dr. Soroka earned her master’s degree and completed postgraduate studies in the Kyiv Conservatory, and later served on its faculty in the chamber music department. Her doctoral degree is from the Eastman School of Music. Solomia Soroka appears with concerts in Europe, Asia, and the United States. She has made four recordings for Naxos, for which she received excellent reviews in major music magazines in the US and Europe. For the past four years Soroka has been under contract with Toccata Classics in London, to make world premiere recordings. Dr. Soroka teaches violin, chamber music, music literature, and advanced music theory at Goshen College. During the summer she conducts masterclasses in Italy and Ukraine. Soroka studied with Hersh Heifetz, Bohodar Kotorovych, Liudmyla Zvirko and Charles Castleman.
Matthew Hill, DMA, pianist and Goshen College professor of music, teaches piano, chamber music, and music history. Matthew began piano lessons at the very late age of 12 because of a strong desire to learn “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin. Though this work continues to elude him, “Could it be Magic” by Barry Manilow, Henry Mancini’s “The Pink Panther,” and a disco version of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony quickly became staples in Matthew’s middle school repertoire. His music education increased rapidly when he learned of the music of Beethoven from reading Peanuts comic strips. His five much older sisters explained to the young boy that record albums of Beethoven Symphonies were owned by their parents, and Matthew then spent many happy hours listening to these as well as many other musical masterpieces. Another highlight of his youth was the discovery of the Hanon Piano Studies, and he gleefully played through all 60 exercises daily. He even expanded into Czerny, Pishna, and especially valued the School of Finger Independence by Isidore Phillipe. He credits his parents’ growth in patience and holiness as a direct result of his daily, and highly repetitive, technique regime.
He has studied with such renowned musicians as Howard Karp and Claude Frank, whose respective pedagogical genealogies include Rosina Lhévinne and Arthur Schnabel. This past heritage of musical thought, in addition to his interests in monastic discipline and the role of silence in music, shapes and forms his pianism, his approaches to interpretation, and his teaching. He has taught, presented master classes, and performed in Italy, China, and at the prestigious Interlochen Fine Arts Summer Camp, as well as at the Interlochen Arts Academy. He has published articles on teaching, contributed a chapter to the text Silence, Music, Silent Music (Ashgate), and has recorded a CD, Silent Colors, on the Blue Griffen label. His students have won various competitions – including a variety of concerto performances, and have also gone onto graduate study at such schools as the University of Oklahoma, Ball State University, Bowling Green University, Westminster Choir College, the University of South Florida, Kansas City Conservatory of Music, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Goshen College Men’s Chorus Home Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Sun, Mar 04th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
The Goshen College Men’s Chorus will conclude their Spring Break tour with a “Home Concert” in Sauder Concert Hall. They will perform their tour program, titled “Music in the Air.” The GC Men’s Chorus is conducted by Scott Hochstetler.
The Men’s Chorus will tour the Pacific Northwest between February 24 and March 2, with stops in Oregon and Washington. For a full listing of tour locations and itinerary, please visit the tour homepage.
Lavender Jazz Spring Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: Free and open to the public
Fri, Apr 06th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
Goshen College’s big band jazz ensemble Lavender Jazz will present a solo concert in Sauder Concert Hall. Lavender Jazz is directed by Greg Smucker.
The program will feature charts and arrangements by Charlie Parker, Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, and Frank Mantooth, as well as an original composition by LJ student member and composer Reid Wegrecki. The Lavender Jazz Small Combo will also perform.
Note: the Goshen College All-Campus Band, originally scheduled for this concert, will instead perform on the Goshen College Symphony Orchestra concert on Sunday, April 22.
This concert is free and open to the public – no tickets required.
Lori Sims, solo piano
Where: Rieth Recital Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Sun, Apr 08th @ 4:00 pm — Rieth Recital Hall
A versatile, generous, and gracious musician and colleague with a unique and personal playing style, Lori Sims possesses a strong technique and a large repertoire which she continues to grow. Known for playing “big” repertoire such as the Goldberg Variations, Brahms Bb Concerto and Rachmaninoff 3, which are decidedly works usually only lying in the masculine repertoire, Sims also excels at intimate and delicate works from several centuries.
Sims has appeared at the Gilmore International Keyboard Festival eighth times, as a recitalist, orchestral soloist, chamber musician, duo-pianist, each year offering a masterclass. She is also a beloved regular at the Hausmusik Series and the Fontana Chamber Arts Series; She has performed multiple times at educational institutions such as Brigham Young University, Roosevelt University, Northern Illinois University Arts Series, and at Schoolcraft Community College. Respected and admired by conductors and orchestral musicians, she has played numerous times with the Rockford Symphony, Holland Symphony, Kalamazoo Symphony, Great Lakes Chamber Orchestra, and Ohio Valley Orchestra. Giving masterclasses in conjunction with a recitals is one of Sims specialities and she has garnered much success offering masterclasses at many of the above institutions.
GC Choirs – EARTHTONES: Songs from Many Cultures
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $12 adults, $8 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Sat, Apr 14th @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
The Goshen Choirs will again explore the large palette of sounds available to the human voices from around the world, in the annual EARTHTONES choral concert.
Performing are the Goshen College Chamber Choir, Men’s Chorus and Women’s World Music Choir. Subtitled “Songs from Many Cultures,” the EARTHTONES program will feature choral works from a wide variety of composers, cultures and countries, including works from Ukraine, South Africa, Thailand and India, and sung in such languages as native Hawai’ian, Gaelic, Zulu and Spanish. The choirs will perform individually and as a joint chorus. During the concert, the choirs will also recognize graduating senior choir members.
Drawing from powerful melodies originating from almost every continent, EARTHTONES promises to provide a concert of vitality and tone color in a celebration of world music.
The Goshen College Choirs are directed by choral professors Dr. Debra Detwiler and Dr. Scott Hochstetler.
GC Symphony Orchestra & Wind Symphony – Spring Concert
Where: Sauder Concert Hall
Price: $8 adults, $6 seniors/students. GC faculty/staff/students free with ID.
Sun, Apr 22nd @ 7:30 pm — Sauder Concert Hall
The Goshen College Symphony Orchestra, conducted by José Rocha, will present their spring concert in Sauder Concert Hall. The concert feature a performance of George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” featuring Professor of Music and pianist Matthew Hill, and selections from Aaron Copland’s “Rodeo.”
The concert will also feature a performance by the Goshen College Wind Symphony, with works performed by Bernstein, Grainger, Meecham, and Hazo.