The Klamath Chorale, the Basin’s largest all-volunteer singing group, will present its annual spring concert, THE HEARTBEAT OF AMERICA, at the Ross Ragland Theater on Sunday, May 5, 2019, at 2:00 p.m. The choir is directed by Robin Schwartz and accompanied by Bill “Slippery” Eaton.
Reserved tickets are priced at $15 for adults, plus transaction fees, with discounts available for students, seniors and members of the military. Tickets are available in advance at the Ross Ragland Theater box office
during regular business hours, online at www.rrtheater.org or by calling 541-844-LIVE. Tickets will also be sold at the door beginning at 12:00 noon on the day of the concert.
The 70-voice choir will perform a program of popular songs that constitute a journey through the musical territory of the U.S.A., including pop standards, the music of Broadway and Hollywood, songs about cities, places and highways, together with classic country music and several well-known patriotic selections.
The two-hour program includes large-scale choral works in special arrangements along with selected songs that will be performed as solos, duets or small ensembles. “For each of our concerts, a special theme or title is chosen more than a year in advance,” says Schwartz, the group’s director. “We always try to choose a theme that allows us to have a wide choice of songs that are musically interesting as well as entertaining and that fit the overall theme.”
“The ‘Heartbeat Of America’ theme has been a particularly interesting one, allowing us to choose songs in many different styles from the wealth of American music. Most of the songs on the program are well-known to our audience, although they might be in a somewhat different arrangement.”
Weekly rehearsals for the choral group’s annual spring concert began in mid-January with more frequent rehearsals beginning in April leading up to the concert.
“The program will be approximately two hours long and we are pretty certain that our audience will leave the theater humming one or more of the songs they have just heard,” says Schwartz, the group’s director since 2009.
The program for THE HEARTBEAT OF AMERICA includes a wide range of familiar music, including choral arrangements of such songs as “Route 66,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” “California Dreamin’,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “Daddy Sang Bass,” “Shenandoah,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” “Friends In Low Places,” “William Tell Overture,” “Sweet Betsy From Pike,” and “Battle Hymn Of The Republic,” among many others.
The concert will also include several appropriate novelty songs appropriate to the concert’s theme. In addition, there will be solos, duets and small ensemble performances of songs such as “Standing On The Corner,” “Grandma’s Feather Bed” and “Someone To Watch Over Me,” among others, along with an original gospel-style number, ”Back In 1776,” written for the Chorale by Bonnie Hay.
The Klamath Chorale was formed in 1979 as the Klamath Symphonic Choir and has performed one or two concerts each year ever since. It is the largest choir in the Klamath Basin, having grown from 40 members to over 90 in recent years, and it is made up of people who love to sing choral music. Seasonal dues help defray the cost of purchasing music and presenting concerts.
Robin Schwartz has directed the Klamath Chorale since 2009. He is a well-known performer and popular vocal soloist and is an assistant professor and choir director at O.I.T. and the director of music for BBC Ministries. He has presented a number of special tribute concerts in and around the Basin over the past ten years.
The long-time accompanist for the Chorale, Slippery Bill Eaton, is also well-known locally as a performer, as a director of musical theatre and for a wide variety of special musical events. He has directed productions at both the Ross Ragland Theater and the Linkville Playhouse as well as at many other venues in and around the Klamath Basin.
For more information about the concert, which is suitable for all ages, telephone
Charles Cossey, the production coordinator, at 541-884-8484.
Contact Information
Robin J. Schwartz, Director
Email: robin.schwartz@oit.edu
Cell: 541-281-3033