Concert Choir

The choir performs a range of literature, singing pieces in different languages and from various time periods. The samples pieces are from the 2010-2011 Pacific Northwest Concert Choir Tour.

• Laudetur Jesus Christus Jicí Teml
• Haec dies William Byrd (1540-1623)
• Christus est natus Damijan Mocnik
• Lord Have Mercy James Bixel
• Sistah Mary arr. Rollo Dilworth
• Gloria Randol Alan Bass
• The Rune of Hospitality Alf Houkom
• Stranger Norman Luboff
• Amazing Grace aar. Norman Luboff
• Arise My Love and Come Away James Bixel
• Deep River arr. Anders Paulsson
• This Little Light of Mine arr. Moses Hogan
• John the Revelator arr. Paul Caldwell & Sean Ivory
• Not One Sparrow is Forgotten arr. William Hawley
• The Lord Bless You and Keep You Peter Lutkin

The study of voice at Bethel College is a dynamic and engaging learning experience. Coordinated by Dr. Soyoun Chun, a graduate of the Boston Conservatory and The University of Kansas, students are actively shaped and nurtured in the vocal experience. Singers perform annual recitals and serve as soloists in orchestral and choral performances. A fully orchestrated and staged musical theater or complete opera work is performed each year. Recent productions include Into the Woods and the first regional production of Light in the Piazza, and Magic Flute. These productions provide gifted singers with the opportunity to engage the vocal craft in a dynamic environment that supports and encourages continued development as singers.

Bethel College singers are encouraged to participate in the annual National Association of the Teachers of Singing (NATS) voice competition. Bethel's studio singers are have done exceptionally well in this regional competition. In 2009, five singers placed in the semifinals in the musical theater and classical categories, and in the finals, Bethel singers earned third and fifth place. In 2010, four singers were invited to sing the semi-final round in the classical and musical theater categories. Bethel senior Josh Powell won first place in the senior classical competition.

The Bethel College Concert Choir has been the core of the music department since Walter Hohmann founded the ensemble in 1932 as the Bethel College A Cappella Choir. Though oratorio choruses, glee clubs, and other music organizations had been active since the 1890s, Hohmann's A Cappella Choir was distinct from its predecessors. The choir traveled out of state to perform and generally sang unaccompanied sacred repertoire from memory. The choir's first extended concert tour was a six-week tour through the western United States and Canada in the summer of 1935. Renamed the Mennonite Singers in the 1950s, the choir toured Europe for the first time in the summer of 1952 and again in 1955 and 1958, traveling by boat each time. During this decade, recordings of the Mennonite Singers were broadcast on a weekly radio program out of Wichita, Kansas.

Walter Hohmann was succeeded by James Bixel in 1958-59, Gordon Corwin in 1959-60, and Walter Jost in the fall of 1960. The choir continued as a mixed, touring ensemble of forty to sixty members, though Bixel changed the name from the Mennonite Singers to the Bethel College Choir. Marles Preheim joined the Bethel College music faculty in the fall of 1977 and alternated leadership of the College Choir with Jost nearly every year until Jost's retirement in 1992. Preheim changed the name of the Bethel College Choir to the Bethel College Concert Choir in the early 1980s. William Eash succeeded Preheim as director of the Bethel College Concert Choir in 1999. As it has for generations, the Bethel College Concert Choir fosters a deep sense of connectedness among singers and audiences through excellent performances of choral music.

Today the Bethel College Concert Choir represents the college through its extensive and vigorous concert schedule. This schedule includes campus performances, concerts in local venues and its annual multi-state tour. Keeping with the tradition established in 1978, the Bethel College Concert Choir tours internationally and has sung concerts in Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Austria, Bosnia, France, Belgium, Sweden, and Norway. They have been featured on television in Bosnia and Poland.

In 2010, the Concert Choir received an Emmy for their soundtrack on the movie documentary, Through the Desert Goes Our Journey. In addition, the Bethel College Concert Choir has been featured in performances at the Kansas Music Educators annual convention and the choir serves as guest performers with the Wichita Symphony Orchestra. The choir's most recent collaboration included a 2010 performance of Mahler's Symphony #2 The Resurrection Symphony with new music director and Bethel College alumni, Daniel Hege. As a result of its choral excellence, the choir has accepted invitations to sing in the Berliner Dome, Stockholm Cathedral, the cathedral of St. Peter in Chains, the Basilica of St. Mary and New York's St. John the Divine.

Annually the Concert Choir joins with all collegiate singers, members of the Newton Community Chorus and the Newton Mid-Kansas Symphony Orchestra in the performance of Choral Masterworks.