Chamber Singers of Southeast Iowa to perform pair of concerts

FAIRFIELD — The Chamber Singers of Southeast Iowa will host a pair of concerts over Memorial Day weekend with the theme of “East-West harmonies.”

The concerts will be at 7:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, May 27-28 at Golden Magnolia Sanctuary at 200 S. Main St. in Fairfield. Musical director Elaine Reding said this spring’s concert features new arrangements of popular traditional songs from Malaysia, Taiwan, and Thailand, with masterworks by Western composers such as Brahms and Mendelssohn, and beautiful modern compositions set to “timeless love poems.”

“The pieces celebrate the healing power of love, singing, nature, and the unity of life, creating waves of inspiration and upliftment of the heart in resonance with the blossoming of spring,” Reding said.

Reding said the chamber singers’ spring concert often has a “multicultural” theme. For instance, a few years ago, the singers performed a medley of songs from Caribbean countries.

“This time, we wanted to do Asia-Pacific countries,” Reding said. “They’re cultures don’t have as much of a choral background, so we found traditional beautiful folk songs. It enables us to bring those cultures forward so people can learn more about them through a choral lens.”

One of the pieces the chamber singers will sing is called “Bersata Senada,” and the message of the song is when people sing together, they sing with one voice. Reding said it was featured during a big concert in Asia that included singers from nine countries such as China, Indonesia, Thailand and Laos.

Another noteworthy piece of music is one the chamber singers will be performing with students from Maharishi School. Reding said the song features a section with spoken word and clapping, and she thought it would be fun to involve young kids in the performance.

“I just poked around until I found a teacher at Maharishi School who wanted to do it with us and was willing to give us class time,” Reding said.

That teacher was Charlotte Zmachinsky, who teaches fifth grade.

“The kids are really into it,” Reding said. “They’re a squirmy group, but they’re very smart, and they’ve learned their part well.”

Joining the chamber singers on stage will be an instrumental trio who will perform interludes between songs. That trio consists of Paul Skevington on piano, flutist Karen Aoki Kouider, and Rosalind Stowe on the viola da gamba.

Reding said the chamber singers will be performing in a number of languages including Malay, Thai, Mandarin Chinese and Afrikaans, which is spoken in South Africa.

“We bring in experts who are native in those languages so they can train us on pronunciation,” Reding said. “People sometimes ask, ‘Why not just perform in English?’ and it’s not the same as hearing the song in the language it was written in.”

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com