The CSU-Pueblo Choir will head to Europe May 7, for a 10-day tour and perform at world-renowned historical venues.
“Even though it’s a short 11 days, it gives them (students) a taste of what Europe is like,” said Dana Ihm, professor of music and director of the choir.
The choirs will depart from Denver and visit Luxembourg, France and Switzerland.
In Luxembourg, the concert will be hosted at the Grand Duchy’s Cathédrale de Notre Dame. In Paris, the choir will perform at the Cathedral de Notre Dame and the American Church, according to information on CSU-Pueblo’s press release.
The choir will also perform at St. Pierre Le Jeune Protestant Church in Strasbourg, a principle city in eastern France and the official seat of the European Parliament. The choir will then travel to Switzerland to sing at a Protestant Church in Grindelwald.
The concerts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, France will be full-length concerts, about one hour and 15 minutes. Other concerts will be half that length, which is about 30 to 45 minutes.
The concerts will be open to the public and free of charge, Ihm said.
“We did have to submit some recordings because some of the places don’t just let anyone come in and sing, like the Notre Dame Cathedral,” she said.
The choir is expecting hundreds of audience members in the big venues, like Cathedral in Luxembourg, because of the thousands of tourists it attracts every day, Ihm said.
The choir will have 36 singers including a total of 23 students. One of them is a former student graduated from the music department and a Pueblo County High School student.
Other members are from the Pueblo Choral Society and the Fremont Civic Choir.
“I would expect them to do the same quality of singing as we do on a normal basis in a regular choral program,” Ihm said. “Some of the adults going along are older voices, so it makes a little more of a challenge to combine older voices from community choirs with my college-age students.”
However, it is a good experience for everybody to sing together in a variety of situations, she said.
The choir will have eight rehearsals prior to the departure, and it plans to have a pre-tour concert Sunday evening, May 6, for family and friends who have supported the choir members to go onto the tour. The location of the pre-tour concert has not been decided yet.
Other than singing at concerts, the choir will also visit historical places in Europe, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and the American Cemetery, where American soldiers who died in the battles of World War II are buried.
The choir will also visit a winery in France and students will be able to taste the champagne.
“The students may go back to Europe, but the chance that they will sing in these historical places again is pretty unlikely,” Ihm said in the press release.
“When you read it in your music history books, all of that brings those places to life because students have actually been there and walked on the streets,” she said. “That’s an invaluable experience for students in their education.”
