Voices of some of the various impactful women in U. S. History filled the air in Ballantyne Auditorium on Friday, December 1 as the choir put on a performance featuring quotes from figures such as Ruth Bader-Ginsberg, Kamala Harris, and Michelle Obama in the ‘Washington Women’ ensemble.
Dr. Fred Kiser, Choir Director, said, “This was a fantastic group of students. The challenge of the fall semester is that it’s a melting pot. People are coming in from all kinds of programs of different sizes. Like students from the big city schools like Kennedy, Washington and Lindmar, but then also students coming in from much smaller programs. Finding that common ground of their musical interest and their skill set and then bringing them together in this melting pot of a program is fun.
“I think this was a great group of students. Fun to work with attentive, talented, and it was a great experience.”
Kiser went on by adding, “I had written a review for a publication of the Washington Women song cycle which was the big piece that we did. Just in writing that review and getting to know the music I thought this would be a great idea for our program and our students and then wanted to add something else. One of the features of this work is the fact that it adds the cello so I wanted to add a couple of other pieces that featured choir and cello.”
The concert choir was accompanied by Zac Gignac, culinary arts major, and professional musician Lucy Conroy. “Zac and I worked together all semester,” Kiser said, “He accompanies the choir in their rehearsals. Then we added Lucy the Cellist during concert week. She plays professionally in the area an she has worked with me before. It adds such a neat texture to have cello and piano and it was a lot of fun putting it together and I think the choir heard pieces in a different way, in a new way with that added instrument.”
Kiser finished off by saying, “The whole idea of the music program and that’s all of the choirs and the instrumental ensembles, is that we want Kirkwood students to continue to have the opportunity to make music, to make art. And even though we have a number of music majors in the ensembles, really, there’s a core group of each of our ensembles here that are non-majors. So it really is a kind of microcosm of the Kirkwood community where we have all of these students with different majors, with different backgrounds coming together, and it’s like the best group project ever.”
Gibson is an aspiring journalist with a variety of roles under his belt including his role as News Editor for the Communique. Once he earns his associate degree from Kirkwood, he plans on transferring to a four-year university to major in Mass Communications and Journalism. Once earning his bachelor’s degree, he intends to follow his dream of becoming a sportswriter.
Categories: Art & Life
