Centenary Choir Embarks on First Tour of the New Year

The Centenary Choir, “America’s Singing Ambassadors,” will tour United Methodist congregations in early January. This weekend tour is just one of many for the Choir, which will end its season inItalythis year. The current leg will take them fromArkansastoTennesseetoMississippi:

• Jan. 3:SardisUMC,Sardis,AR7:00 pm
• Jan. 4: BartlettUMC,Memphis,TN 7:00 pm
• Jan. 5: Madison UMC,Madison,MS7:00 pm
• Jan. 6: Madison UMC, 8:30 and 10:45 am services
• Jan. 6: Trinity UMC,Ruston,LA4:30 pm

The 2012-2013 program offers a musical journey that parallels the human life, presenting a thoughtful collection of lullabies, love songs, and memorial selections that point to life eternal, a thematic progression encapsulated in the Daniel Gawthrop’s Sing Me to Heaven.

The profound words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mother Theresa, and Charles Wesley shine respectively in Eric Nelson’s How Do I Love Thee, Joan Szymco’s All Works of Love, and Mack Wilberg’s soaring Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.  Peter Louis van Dijk’s profound West African lullaby, Horizons, and Jeffery Ames’ In Remembrance explore the connections of birth and death.  In addition to these pieces, the Choir will also offer rousing spirituals such as Moses Hogan’s Ride on King Jesus, Shawn Kirchner’s Wana Baraka, and Byron Smith’s Worthy to Be Praised, as well as a touch of Broadway with the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s tragic love story, The Phantom of the Opera.

The Choir has traveled for seven decades with a repertoire ranging from Bach to Broadway, world folk music to contemporary church music, and oratorio to opera. The Choir was organized in 1941 by Dr. A. C. "Cheesy" Voran and has performed throughout the world, giving concerts in 32 nations on six continents.

More information about the Centenary College Choir, and future tour dates, can be found online at http://www.centenary.edu/choir.