Choir
The St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church Choir sings three of four Sundays each month from early September to mid-June. Our musical selections amplify and complement the varied sermon topics provided by the Minister and the Worship and Liturgy committee. Rehearsals are every Thursday night from 7:15 to 9:30 and Sunday morings at 9:30 AM.
We are a choral community. While we most definitely have fun, we work hard, and together we make good music happen. We are serious in our music making, and we are unafraid to take risks. We find joy in singing a varied and challenging repertoire which includes classical music from the Medieval to Contemporary style periods (unaccompanied or with requisite instrumental accompaniment) and music from diverse ethnic traditions, in original languages. We strive always, with music from all traditions, to learn the works in their cultural context. Music is a functional art, and we feel it is immeasurably important to understand where the music comes from. Whenever we can, we make connections with the many talented artists who live in Cincinnati or who come to study at the conservatory of music.
Choral music is a powerful medium that enables singers to comprehend and experience culture. Singing can provide an entryway and open the doors of perception into other cosmologies. This is such an exciting way to learn about people, how they think, and feel, and live. Often we invite artists and resource people to our rehearsals to teach us, to help us understand and live inside a music we are learning. When we recently sang a piece rooted in the Zulu tradition, we invited a young singer from Cape Town, South Africa to help us feel and dance the underlying rhythms of the work.
We have collaborated with folk musicians from Bolivia to perform Ariel Ramirez's Navidad Nuestra, we collaborated with Indians from South Asia in a multi-media presentation called The Blue Jewel, and we will again collaborate with the Indian Community Choir, this spring, under the direction of Kanniks Kannikeswaren.
A selection of past musical programs include: the Bach Magnificat with chamber orchestra, Carmina Burana with two pianos and percussion, the Paul Winter Consort's Missa Gaia with eight instrumentalists. The choir offered a choral program to honor Dr. Ysaye Maria Barnwell, of Sweet Honey in the Rock, and she came as part of the program for the dress rehearsal and two performances. Often we select a theme around which we program music and let the music speak through artful juxtaposition.