The Twin Cities Organ Concert Series presents Gloriana: Five Centuries of English Choral and Organ Music at 4 p.m. Sunday at Church of the Mediator, 14280 Red Arrow Highway, Harbert.
Featured will be organist Linda Mack, musical director for St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Dowagiac, David Carew of Southwestern Michigan College, members of the Dogwood Chorale and Citadel Symphony Chorus, violinist Claudio Gonzalez, cellist Aaron Sinnett and harpist Meg Rogers.
Carew, conductor, is entering his seventh year as the director of choral activities at SMC. He conducts four ensembles and teaches private voice.
Before SMC, Carew taught middle and high school choral music in the Dowagiac and Edwardsburg school districts. He received his bachelor’s degree in 1998 from Western Michigan University and completed a master’s degree in conducting from Michigan State University in 2005.
Carew is co-founder, director and singer with The Dogwood Chorale, a professional choir under the umbrella of the Dogwood Fine Arts Festival.
This ensemble made up of music educators and community members with extensive performance background also facilitates a middle school summer choir camp in July.
Theater performance credits include several lead roles in productions with Beckwith Theatre Company in Dowagiac, including “Children of Eden,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Evita,” and “Forever Plaid.”
Twin Cities Organ Concert Series celebrates the glories of English music spanning five centuries, from Elizabethan choral music of William Byrd and Thomas Tallis to tidbits from George Shering and Lennon/McCartney.
Henry Purcell’s introspective “Funeral Sentences” and an organ voluntary by William Walond will represent the Baroque era.
As church music and music for large orchestra flourished in England in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the concert will highlight England’s contributionto the Romantic era with motets by Stanford and Charles Wood and a selection from Elgar’s Enigma Variations.
The crowning work will be Vaughan Williams’ “Serenade to Music,” with text by William Shakespeare.
The church’s 11-rank Zimmer pipe organ will be featured. This 1983 instrument was installed in the church in 2010 and was recently expanded by the George M. Buck Co. of Grand Rapids.
There is no admission charge; a freewill offering will be taken ($5 donation suggested).