Juniata College

Give to the Concert Choir

As the off-campus performance choral ensemble, Concert Choir tours in the spring semester with repertoire focusing on historical sacred music spanning five centuries and several cultures. Each year, their fall semester repertoire focuses on historical secular music from madrigals to jazz.

Composed of 45 students from the College, the auditioned members of the Concert Choir come from several academic disciplines available at Juniata. Although there is no music major or minor at Juniata, choir members’ dedication and commitment to sharing the beauty of choral music provides meaningful experiences for both singer and listener. Recent choral department tours include Germany (2003), Ireland (2003), Croatia/Slovenia (2004), Brazil (2005), Poland/ Belarus/Russia (2005), Mexico (2006), Trinidad (2007), Appalachia, USA (2008), France (2009), Brasil (2010), Hungary/Romania (2011), Ireland (2012), and Guatemala (2013), China (2014), Costa Rica (2015), Germany (2015), Hungary/Czech Republic (2016), Ireland (2017), Vietnam (2018), Germany/Switzerland/France (2019), and Morocco (2019).

Academic credit is available to the Concert Choir members. Auditions take place on the day before classes begin in the fall semester.

Auditions

Auditions Include:

Your Range - Using simple patterns we’ll move up and down your range to see how high and how low you sing.
Your Tonal Memory - Using short melodies played on the piano, you’ll sing them back to see how developed your tonal memory is.
Your Sight-Reading - Using brief one-line melodies, we’ll see how well you sing at sight without the piano. If you haven’t learned how to do this, we skip this part.
“My Country ‘Tis of Thee” - We’ll supply the words to this familiar melody in case you forget.

Typical Concert Choir Activities

Weekly Rehearsals

MTWThF 30-minutes per day
One Hour Sectional

Fall Retreat

Second weekend of the Fall semester
Friday evening through Sunday morning
Overnight at the Raystown Field Station

Fall Concert

November
Two evening rehearsals and a 3:00pm Sunday concert

Spring Retreat

First weekend of Spring semester
Friday evening through Sunday morning
Overnight at the Raystown Field Station

Tour Rehearsals

Thursday and Friday evenings before departure

Tour

Spring Break

Tour Homecoming Concert

Usually in March
Two evening rehearsals and a 3:00pm Sunday concert

Recording Weekend

March or April
Friday evening through Sunday evening

Weekend Tour

March or April
Friday evening through Sunday evening

Baccalaureate

Friday night of Commencement Weekend

Costs involved in Concert Choir include a one-time concert attire ($100 for women and $130 for men), spring tour (typically between $600 and $1000 billed as a course fee), and misc. costs (usually about $100 per year).