News Release
Kenyon College Chamber Singers Spring Tour, 2024
The Kenyon College Chamber Singers, conducted by Dr. Benjamin Locke, will be performing on Sunday, March 3rd, 2024, at Tower Hill Church, 255 Harding Rd, Red Bank, NJ 07701 at 6:30 p.m. The Chamber Singers, consisting of forty-nine undergraduates chosen by competitive audition, is Kenyon’s premier touring ensemble. The group is noted for its versatility of vocal style and broad repertoire. The New York Concert Review applauded the artistry of the ensemble, stating “the young members of the Chamber Singers…retain the proper lightness to navigate the translucent textures of Sweelinck’s Cantate Domino and Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus…focused intently on the conductor, the singers kept their audience hanging on every word.”
The Chamber Singers will again present an eclectic mix of a cappella choral repertoire on their 2024 Spring Tour. A centerpiece to the program will be Johannes Brahms’s motet Schaffe in mir, Gott, ein rein’ Herz (Create in me a clean heart, O God), with numerous other compositions by composers Jacob Handl, Undine Smith Moore, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Rebecca Clarke, Eskil Hemberg, and Kathleen Allan. The ensemble is noted for its regular inclusion of music from South Africa, which this year includes Dubula, Mfanandini, a Xhosa folksong.
The members of Chamber Singers come from eighteen states as well as the countries of Egypt, China, and Vietnam. A minority of the singers have declared music as their academic major, with the rest having chosen fields such as neuroscience, history, biology, physics, psychology, political science, chemistry, and English, to name but a few. All the singers value music as an integral part of a liberal-arts education and take great pride in reaching for the highest musical standards in performance.
Benjamin Locke is in his fortieth year at Kenyon. He directs the Kenyon Community Choir, teaches music theory, conducting and voice, and is also the musical director of the Knox County Symphony (based in Mount Vernon, Ohio). He has written several research articles on the choral music of Johannes Brahms and has also published transcriptions and arrangements of South African folksongs. Dr. Locke earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he studied extensively with Robert Fountain.
The Music Department consists of six distinguished faculty in the areas of musicology, music theory and performance, and ethnomusicology. The Department resides in the Storer Music Building with state-of-the-art classrooms and performance spaces. Applied study is offered in piano, woodwinds, brass, strings, and voice as well as organ, harp, harpsichord and percussion by our talented adjunct faculty. Both music majors and non-majors participate fully in the numerous instrumental and vocal ensembles on campus.
Kenyon College is Ohio’s oldest private college and is currently celebrating its bicentennial year. It boasts a remarkably dedicated faculty, a carefully planned liberal arts curriculum, a highly capable student body, and alumni who have contributed significantly in all walks of life.
