The BYU–Hawaii Concert Choir filled the McKay Auditorium with the sound of vocals on Oct. 9 during its Fall Semester concert.
Directed by Michael Belnap, the choir opened with “Sing We and Chant It” followed by “Now is the Month of Maying” both by Thomas Morley. Then came “Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal” arranged by Alice Parker with solos from tenor Chris Cornelison and soprano Kaitlyn Bourne. The following piece, “What is it We Shall Hope For?” came from the 1977 work “The Redeemer” by Robert Cundick and Ralph Woodward.
Cornelison, a junior English major from Hauula, talked about preparing for the performance. He said, “It’s a class, so we meet every day Monday through Friday and we have one additional hour of quartet practice.”
For one of the songs, “Janger,” choir members also had to learn a dance. Cornelison said, “The dancing was done in the last couple of weeks. We found a YouTube video of a high school choir performing it and we watched the video in the band room a bunch of times to memorize the choreography.” Choir members Michael Potter, Terina Christy, and Kei Riggins put together the choreography for the number.
Spencer Grubbe, a sophomore general music major from Oregon, said the concert felt like it came so much earlier than last year due to the change in scheduling. Former student, but current choir member Pononui Cabrinha from Hauula, felt the choir had less time to prepare than previous years but thought it did quite well for the time it had.
Another piece entitled “Ubi Caritas,” arranged by Timothy Max, featured a solo from soprano Brittany Tanuvasa.
Choir member, Bianne Helms, a junior vocal performance major from Laie, expressed why she loves being in choir after the concert. She explained, “It’s the way that we can bring out the message in music so efficiently and so well.” For example, she talked about her favorite piece: “‘Ubi Caritas,’ even though it was in another language, it was in Latin, I could still understand that it wasabout hope.”
Before the intermission the choir changed from traditional black and white dress into Aloha shirts and lava lavas. The choir then performed two pieces from Mark Haynes, “Walking Down That Glory Road” and “Go Down Moses.” Bass William Arnett and alto Valorie Lafaele performed solos during the latter piece.
The choir opened the second part of its concert with “This is One of Those Moments” from the 1983 movie “Yentl,” arranged by Ronald Staheli with Lafaele as a soloist along with soprano Kei Riggins. Also from Ronald Staheli, the choir performed “Singa New Song Unto God” before it entertained the audience with “Janger,” a traditional Balinese song and dance arranged by BudiSusanto Yohanes.
The Russian song “Borgoroditse Devo” by Sergi Rachmsninov followed the traditional Balinese song. Just as they did in devotional during the month of September, the choir performed “Create in Me” by John Purifoy, with a Dan Forrest arrangement of “How Great Thou Art” immediately following it. The choir then proceeded to close the evening with a piece performed in Swahili titled “Baba Yetu” from Christopher Tin featuring the solos of tenor Pononui Cabrinha and, once more, soprano Kaitlyn Bourne.