Denison University alumni who participated in the Denison Singers group starting with its founding in 1961 are returning for a four-day reunion this month and will conclude the festivities with a concert performance at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 22, in Swasey Chapel. The concert is free and open to the public.

Returning to campus will be choir members from across the country and from London, Tokyo, and Cairo. Participants have selected pieces performed through the years by Gwyneth Walker, Palestrina, Schuetz, Brahms, Randall Thompson, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Orlando Gibbons, Irving Fine and Denison alumnus George W. Swope '69. The repertory also will include new pieces written for the event by R. Michael Daugherty '71 of Jacksonville, N.C., Clifford Davis '72 of Mount Vernon and Michael Fauss '72 of Atlanta, all of whom sang under the leadership of the Singers founding conductor, Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts William Osborne.

The Denison Singers began as a madrigal group but broadened its repertoire to include every sort of music appropriate for a chamber chorus. Osborne, who retires this summer after teaching for 42 years at Denison, will move to Winston-Salem (N.C.) where he will become the music director of the Piedmont Chamber Singers.

During his tenure, Osborne led the group in more than 550 concerts in 24 states and the District of Columbia. This year's Denison Singers group has just returned from a 12th foreign trip - a nine-concert tour of The Netherlands, Belgium and France that concluded with the singing of Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris on May 24. On its other foreign tours, which started in 1963, the group has traveled to 16 countries from Portugal to Russia in Europe as well as to Venezuela. Locally, the choir has worked with The Early Interval, the Bergonzi String Quartet, members of the Denison faculty jazz group and the Columbus Symphony and collaborated with Andy Williams and The Chieftains during their Columbus appearances.

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.

For press inquiries:

Name

Barbara Stambaugh

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Director, Media Relations

Primary Email

stambaughb@denison.edu

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(740) 587-8575