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South Bend Chamber Singers  

The South Bend Chamber Singers, an ensemble-in-residence at Saint Mary’s College, celebrates its 20th anniversary season with this recording. Over the past 20 years the Singers have presented major choral-orchestral works, including Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s Magnificat, B Minor Mass, and St. John Passion, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. Yet the ensemble concentrates primarily on works by living composers and regularly commissions new works and unusual and complex arrangements. The Singers have commissioned new choral works from composers Stephen Paulus, Jan Bach, William Hawley, Steven Sametz, Libby Larsen, Gregg Smith, Carey Boyce, Frank Ferko, Dan Locklair, Carol Barnett, Paul Carey, Zae Munn, Robert Harris, J. David Moore, Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, and others, most of which have been published and continue to be performed by choirs throughout the world. Other concerts have featured music from America, Canada, South America, Europe, Africa, India, Korea, and even Mongolia. The choir has joined with numerous other chamber and instrumental ensembles including the South Bend Symphony, the Chicago Chamber Orchestra, and Germany’s Chamber Orchestra of the Rhine; the Chester, Cavani, and Avalon String Quartets; the Northern Illinois University Steel Band, and most recently South Bend’s own Kennedy’s Kitchen. From 1994 to 2001, the Chamber Singers were featured annually on The First Art, a broadcast heard nationally on public and commercial radio stations. They were selected to perform for the Central Division Convention of the American Choral Directors Association in 1996 (Cincinnati) and 2002 (Chicago). In 2000, the Singers were one of five finalists for the prestigious Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence, given annually by Chorus America, and they won the ASCAP/Chorus America Award for Adventurous Programming in 2004. Since 1992 their efforts have been rewarded by annual grants from the Indiana Arts Commission. They have recorded two other compact discs on the Pro Organo label: Christmas at Loretto (Pro Organo CD 7079) and Millennium: Choral Music of Today (Pro Organo CD 7162) .