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Choral Music at CWU

Choral music thrives at CWU, with five traditional choirs and three jazz-vocal ensembles offered quarterly.

Dr. Gary Weidenaar conducting

The groups comprise a mixture of voicings, repertoire specialties, and ability levels – meaning at Central there is a choir for everyone who likes to sing!

Each choral ensemble has its own identity and takes special pride in what it does. The groups, totaling over 200 singers, provide a wide variety of quality choral repertoire, singing to thousands of audience members annually.

Everything from classical to comedy, madrigals to multi-cultural music, and repertoire which includes holiday music to vocal jazz is presented in multiple concerts during the year

There is the popular Men’s Choir as well a large mixed-voice group, the University Chorale. The CWU Women’s Choir is an auditioned group, designed for those women with some choral experience and reading ability. For those who want to get better at reading music in a choral setting, the Central Singers does just that, focusing on improving sight reading ability. A rigorous audition is required to gain membership in Central’s premier traditional choral ensemble, the Chamber Choir.

Female singer performing with other students singing in background
 

Vocal Jazz

Students are not only allowed, but encouraged to be in one of the three vocal jazz ensembles at CWU.

Vocal Jazz III is traditionally directed by a graduate assistant or an undergraduate music education major, while Vocal Jazz II is directed by a graduate student or professor Singh. Vocal Jazz I, Central’s award-winning premier vocal jazz ensemble, is directed by faculty member Professor Vijay Singh.

CWU's Reputation

The CWU choirs are known across the country in both the traditional and jazz idioms.  The CWU Chamber Choir has sung at multiple state and regional conferences in the recent past, and its presence on YouTube has garnered attention worldwide.  The Vocal Jazz One ensemble is by all accounts one of the premiere groups of its kind in the country.  VJ1 has sung at multiple state, regional and national conferences - most recently at the 2011 national ACDA conference in Chicago.
 
Like Singing? At CWU, there’s a choir for you!

The rest of the story is told by exploring the various choral pages, which include information on each ensemble as well as events, repertoire, history, personnel, auditions, and even audio clips (for all department ensembles, at the Recordings page)

For more info, call: 509-963-1616

Email: Gary.Weidenaar@cwu.edu

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