Iowa Wesleyan College presenting choral music concert

MOUNT PLEASANT ? The Iowa Wesleyan College Choir, Mount Pleasant Chorale and a large number of guest instrumentalists, under the direction of Jamie Spillane, will present a concert of uplifting choral music called ?In Praise of Spring? at 4 p.m. Sunday in the Iowa Wesleyan College Chapel.

The concert will center around Paul Basler?s ?Missa Kenya,? which is a piece for choir and solo horn in Latin but with African rhythms and strong percussion. Steve Rod of Mount Pleasant will be the horn player and Joel Brown will accompany on piano with David Johnson and Will Carillo on percussion. Brown and Johnson are on the music faculty at Iowa Wesleyan; Carillo, of Iowa City, is a student at Iowa Wesleyan.

Another highlight will be a guest vocalist, soprano Erika Brown Thomas, daughter of professor Brown, and Kevin Bourassa, Brown?s son-in-law, on trumpet. They will be performing Bach solo cantata No. 51 with string players from the Southeast Iowa Symphony Orchestra.

The Iowa Wesleyan College Broad Street Singers will perform arrangements made popular by the King?s Singers, and the afternoon also will include ?The May Night? by Brahms, Gwyneth Walker?s ?How Can I Keep From Singing? and Dona nobis pacem, the finale from Bach?s B Minor Mass with SEISO brass and strings along with Iowa Wesleyan Associate Professor Emeritus Carl Moehlman on organ.

A donation of $5 is suggested at the door.