RELEASED: Oct. 10, 2002

DANVILLE, KY—The Centre College music program will sponsor its annual fall choral concert featuring nearly 70 voices including the Centre Singers, the Women's and Men's choruses, and the Danville Community Singers on Oct. 13 at 3 p.m. in Newlin Hall of the Norton Center for the Arts.

The free concert will feature primarily sacred music. The highlight will be two major works of musical settings of the text Te Deum by composers who lived nearly two centuries apart—Franz Josef Haydn and Benjamin Britten.

The Te Deum text, dating back to at least the 3rd century C.E., is one of praise for God the Father and Christ the Son. Haydn's work was written toward the end of his life, while Britten's setting was written as a young man of 32 years.

Music professor and choral director Barbara Hall, notes that "both works address a prayer for salvation in quieter tones, but the two end in entirely different moods."

Also on the program will be choral pieces written within the last 10 years. Joseph Martin's The Awakening is a moving tribute to the power of music; Michele Roueche's Lux Aeterna is an evocative picture of divine eternal light; and Stephen Paulus' Pilgrim's Hymn is a rich tapestry of original and traditional poetry.

Hall further notes that the music will "show off the special sonorities of separate men's and women's choirs."

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