UNL Chamber Singers to perform today at Sheldon

The Chamber Singers will perform Dec. 7 in the Great Hall of Sheldon Museum of Art.
The Chamber Singers will perform Dec. 7 in the Great Hall of Sheldon Museum of Art.

The UNL Chamber Singers will perform at 5 p.m. Dec. 7 in the Sheldon Museum of Art Great Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.

The 25-member vocal ensemble provides a chamber vocal experience for singers and is under the direction of Associate Professor of Choral Music Therees Hibbard.

“We’re a small group who sings mostly a cappella pieces, and we sing classical repertoire, but we also do some really cool new things, some cutting-edge things,” said Matt Heng, a junior advertising and public relations major from York, who is in his second year with the Chamber Singers. “Being a non-major, it’s a great experience to be surrounded by all these people who are so great at what they’re doing, and I just get to kind of be along for the ride.”

Their Dec. 7 program at Sheldon will include Bach’s “Magnificat,” Ysaye Barnwell’s “Wanting Memories,” as well as some other carols for the season.

The Chamber Singers are recognized as artists-in-residence at Sheldon and perform there twice a semester.

The Chamber Singers are celebrating some additional good news. They have been invited to perform at the Conference of the Association of British Choral Directors in Oxford, U.K., in August 2013 and will be attending with support from the Hixson-Lied Endowment, Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts and the School of Music.

“I feel like I was brought here to bring the world to Nebraska because I’m definitely not a Midwest girl—though I’m learning” said Hibbard, who worked for 12 years as a choral conductor, singing tutor and senior lecturer in the London area prior to coming to UNL in 2005. “But now it’s our turn to take Nebraska to the world, or at least a little part of it.”

The Chamber Singers will likely be one of about five or six regional and international choirs at the convention, but they are the only American choir selected. In addition to performing at the convention, the Chamber Singers will have the opportunity to perform elsewhere in the area and tour London and Oxford.

Hibbard plans to present a variety of work in England, featuring both American music and some classical pieces, including a piece by Nebraska composer David Foltz (“She Walks in Beauty”) and a new piece by School of Music alumnus Kurt Knecht.