UF Concert-Chorale to Sing with Heidelberg University Community Chorus, Seneca East Elementary School Chorus Also Will Perform

The University of Findlay Concert-Chorale and the Heidelberg University Community Chorus will present “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 7, in the Findlay High School R.L. Heminger Auditorium, 1200 Broad Ave., Findlay.
Admission is free, but tickets are required; seating is limited. Call the UF Box Office at 419-434-5335.
The concert will be presented again at 7 p.m. Monday, April 8, at the Tiffin Columbian High School Auditorium, 300 S. Monroe St., Tiffin. A freewill offering will be taken.
Micheal F. Anders, Ph.D., professor of music at Findlay, and Paul Mayhew, Ph.D., assistant professor of music at Heidelberg, will conduct the 150-voice choir.
The concert also will feature the Seneca East Elementary School Chorus, directed by Lynn Huenemann. Professional soloists for the performance include Carol Dusdieker, soprano; Tim Sarsany, tenor; and Lance Ashmore, baritone. All will be accompanied by pianists Kelly Lewis and Sharon Vaas, as well as percussionists Michael R. Malloy, Brent Deskin, Matt Timman, Jose Duarte and Craig Schutz.
“Carmina Burana” was composed originally for three soloists, a large mixed chorus, children’s chorus and a very large orchestra, but in 1956 Orff commissioned his student, Wilhelm Killmayer (b. Munich, 1927), to arrange a version specifically for educational use. This version uses the same vocal forces as the original but with the accompaniment reduced to two pianos and five percussionists.
The “O Fortuna” movement from “Carmina Burana” has become one of the most recognized themes in all of western music and has been featured in numerous movies, televisions programs and commercials.
“Carmina Burana” was completed in 1936 by the German composer and music educator Carl Orff (1895-1982) and was premiered on June 8, 1937, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The text consists of 23 13th-century poems from a collection found in the Benedictine Monastery at Beuern in the Bavarian Alps.
Orff arranged the poems into three parts, each dealing with springtime, activities in the tavern and the court of love. A prologue, addressed to “Fortune, Empress of the World,” appears again as the closing number. The thread that runs throughout is the working of Fortune, the goddess of fate.