SALISBURY -St. John’s Lutheran Church, 200 W. Innes St., will welcome the Wingate University Chamber Choir on Oct. 25 for a free concert. The event will take place at 7 p.m. in the sanctuary.
The choir, the most highly selective of four offered at the university, will perform “Southern Harmony,” a program featuring Sacred Harp-inspired selections and African American spirituals.
“The vast majority of these pieces have a direct link to Southern choral tradition,” explains the choir’s director, Dr. Kenney Potter.
The concert is part of the choir’s fall tour, in which they will be singing at high schools in Hillsborough and Southern Pines. The group will be hosted by church members on Thursday evening.
Senior Nikki Goodman is the daughter of St. John’s staff member Karen Goodman, and church member Alex Yost is a recent graduate of the group.
“We have good connections with St. John’s,” Potter says. “We are glad we can come and sing.”
The main focus of the tour, he adds, is to expose high school students to the choir, and recruit potential members. There are 1,700 undergraduates at Wingate, and four choirs are available to music majors and non-majors alike.
In the past several years, the chamber choir has performed all over the Southeast, as well as Estonia and South Africa. Members have sung a wide variety of music, from J.S. Bach’s “St. John Passion” to Durufle’s “Requiem” and Handel’s “Messiah.”
Potter notes that participation in the Wingate choirs “encourages the students to engage vocally, mentally, emotionally and spiritually as they practice and perform. In turn, the singers strive to inspire and engage their listeners’ minds, souls and spirits through informed, artistic performance.”
The Rev. Rhodes Woolly is senior pastor of St. John’s, and Danielle Kosanovich is diaconal minister for youth and outreach. Robert Durocher is minister of music.
Susan Shinn is communications assistant at St. John’s Lutheran Church