The Denison Singers will present the repertory that the group will take to Europe on their May tour at 8 p.m., Friday (April 25) in Burke Recital Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.

The nine European performances scheduled for the latter half of May will take place in The Netherlands, Belgium and France, and so the Denison concert will open with works recognizing the musical heritage of each of these countries. Latin motets by Sweelinck and Josquin, as well as three movements of a Mass by Pierre Certon that The Singers will present when they sing the Saturday evening Mass at Notre Dame in Paris, will be performed. The remainder of the program will consist entirely of made-in-America music, including an Easter anthem by William Billings from 1795, three of Frank Ferko's "Marian Motets," and three Psalm settings by the late Edwin Fissinger. The first Midwestern performance of Gwyneth Walker's "God's Grandeur," a cycle of three movements built on poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, also are on the concert program.

The sacred portion of the program also will include "Trembling for Joy," written especially for the tour by Corey Babb, a junior from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is a member of The Singers' tenor section, as well as spiritual arrangements by Hairston, Burleigh, Whalum and Dawson. The concert will include secular partsongs from the early 20th century by Amy Cheney Beach, Henry Hadley and George Whitefield Chadwick, Ron Nelson's arrangement of "Three Mountain Ballads," and a medley from "Oklahoma!," commemorating the 60th anniversary of the opening of that classic Broadway show.

The Denison Singers was founded in 1961 and began to tour two years later. The choir has since presented more than 550 concerts in 24 states as well as on 11 previous foreign tours that have taken them across much of Europe and to Venezuela. The group has made radio and television programs both in the United States and abroad, has performed with pop singer Andy Williams and The Chieftains during their seasonal appearances in Columbus, and also has collaborated with The Early Interval, the Denison Faculty Jazz Quartet, the Bergonzi String Quartet, and members of the Columbus Symphony Orchestra.

Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts William Osborne, The Singers' founding conductor, serves Denison as Director of Choral Organizations and University Organist. He will retire at the end of this school year.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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