Arts & Entertainment
Lakes Concert Choir to Participate in Celebration of Hymns
Sunday event organized by Pierce College's music department to feature 250 singers including chancel choirs and a Southern Baptist quartet.
About 60 students from Lakes High School’s Concert Choir will be among 250 singers performing Sunday night in a choral celebration of church hymns.
The collaboration, at Pacific Lutheran University’s Lagerquist Hall, is arranged by Pierce College’s music program. It will feature the college’s Concert Choir and Chamber Singers along with the Tacoma Symphony Chorus, McChord Field Chancel Choir and Little Church on the Prairie Chancel Choir.
Guest singers from Mount Cross Lutheran, Central Lutheran, First Lutheran and other local churches will also perform at the concert, which starts at 7 p.m.
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Dr. Ben Keller, the director of Lakes’ choir, said that Evin Lambert, the choir director at Pierce College, invited his students to participate.
“He said that we were the only high-school choir they considered, so that is very nice,” he said.
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Keller said that he and Lambert are good friends, and that he knows that Pierce College is trying to boost the profile of its music department.
Sunday’s concert is the first of its kind for the school. The invited choirs will sing on their own – Lakes is scheduled to perform two pieces – and then as a mass choir of 250.
The concert will feature more than a dozen hymns performed in varying styles, including classical choral, contemporary small group and a Southern Baptist male quartet.
“The music is powerful in both sound and message, and will be focused more toward historical perspective of the development of church hymns in America,” Lambert said in a news release.
Keller said that he is proud of his kids – “they’re really troopers” – because they have so much going on. In addition to this concert, many choir members are involved in the June 10 spring musical; Lakes’ spring concert is June 13; and the choir will also perform at graduation on June 20.
“It just never ends,” he said.
Regardless, Keller said he is looking forward to Sunday.
“It’s going to be a great event,” he said.
Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for students with valid ID and free for Pierce College students. Tickets are available by calling PLU at 253-535-7411.
