The University of Lynchburg’s fall concert season kicks off with “Lynchburg: Our Hometown,” at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 20, in Sydnor Performance Hall.
The thematic concert will include performances by Lynchburg’s Wind Symphony and Orchestra, String Ensemble, and Community Big Band, with vocals by a trio of students and Curtain Call, the University’s musical theater ensemble.
Admission is free, but tickets are required.
Over the hourlong concert, the audience will learn about the Monacan Indian Nation — which once occupied the land where the University now sits — as well as the Quakers, Old City Cemetery, the Civil War, the “Bedford Boys” and D-Day Memorial, and more.
“It will take the audience on a short, musical journey through the history of Lynchburg and surrounding communities,” said Dr. Oeida Hatcher, professor of music and director of instrumental activities.
The program will include “Trail of Tears,” a James Barnes composition arranged by visiting professor Dr. Chris Sharp and performed by the Wind Symphony and Orchestra. The piece pays tribute to indigenous peoples forced from their homelands after President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830.
The concert also will include what Hatcher describes as “light musical moments,” featuring campus squirrels and Buffalo Bill Cody’s traveling “Wild West” show, which visited Lynchburg several times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
During a segment about the Quakers, a religious group that settled in Lynchburg in the mid-1700s, Alyssa Camejo ’24, Victoria Rogers ’24, and Sloane Kelly ’22, ’24 MPAM will perform the Quaker hymn “How Can I Keep from Singing?”
Kelly, a student in the Master of PA Medicine program, also will sing, “I’ll Be Seeing You” — popular during World War II — with the Community Jazz Band.
The concert’s closing number, “Hymn to the Fallen” from the movie “Saving Private Ryan,” pays tribute to WWII soldiers and U.S. veterans, including the “Bedford Boys” of nearby Bedford, Virginia, who fought and died on D-Day.
“Lynchburg: Our Hometown” will be followed by a performance of the University’s Concert Choir and Lynchburg Singers. The concert, “You Will Be Found,” will begin at 8:15 p.m. in Snidow Chapel. Admission is free and no tickets are required.
“You Will Be Found” will include what Dr. Jeremy Craft ’12 MEd, ’16 MA, director of choral activities at Lynchburg, describes as a “diversity of music, both the style of music and a diversity of composers,” featuring “music from the Renaissance to modern, including Broadway.”
In addition to the title song, from the Broadway musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” the ensembles will perform “Non Nobis Domine” by William Byrd, “A Patch of Light” by Jacob Naverud, and compositions by Rosephanye Powell, Andrea Ramsey, Susan LaBarr, and others.
The Oct. 20 concerts are presented in conjunction with Homecoming and Parents and Family Weekend, Oct. 20-22. For tickets or more information, call 434.544.8344 or email music@lynchburg.edu.
Please mark your calendars for more fall concerts:
- Percussion/Small Ensembles, 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12, Sydnor Performance Hall
- Jazz Ensembles, 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14, Sydnor Performance Hall
- Opera Workshop, “Mozart to Modern: Highlights from Early Opera to the Modern American Musical,” 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, Snidow Chapel
- Choral Ensembles, 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Dec. 1 and 2, Snidow Chapel
- Chamber Strings, works by Mendelssohn and others, 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 3, Sydnor Performance Hall
- Wind Symphony and Orchestra, 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday, Dec. 7 and 8, Sydnor Performance Hall
