Sweet singing in the choir

Next time you're at your computer and you're stressed out and no one is looking, it can be uplifting and calming to take a few minutes to listen in on local choruses.

You can hear how the Harmonia Chamber Singers sound here. Durufle's "Ubi Caritas" and the Palestrina excerpt are particularly recommended, though the new version of Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races" is also worth checking out.

Then click here to sample the offerings of Vocalis Chamber Choir, pictured to the left. Try "You are the New Day," a song written for the King's Singers by John David. I remember the first time I heard Vocalis singing that, when WNED-FM was playing the group's new CD. It's the kind of song you like right away, on first hearing. There is also "O magnum mysterium" by the Spanish Renaissance master Thomas Luis de Victoria.

And finally, I don't know if anyone is reading ArtsBeat today, with all the political turmoil around us, but if you are, here is Patrick Doyle's "Non Nobis, Domine," as heard and seen in Ken Branagh's "Henry V."

I first heard that sung by the Buffalo Gay Men's Chorus who did quite a number on it. The BGMC really owns the song, but the folks who sing it in the movie aren't bad, either.

-- Mary Kunz Goldman