Barrington, Harper singers team up

The Summer Olympics may not start until August, but Olympic fever has hit the Northwest suburbs.

Two of the area's choirs leave for Beijing this week to perform in a series of concerts as part of China's "Cultural Overture" festival leading up to the Olympic Games.

The Barrington Village Singers - made up of Barrington High School students, graduates and parents - will join Harper College's concert choir in a combined ensemble that also will include singers from nine other choirs across the country.

"We still can't quite believe it," says Nancie Tobison, Barrington director. "The high school has had quite a year, starting with performing at the White House Christmas party."

In China, they open their first performance on Monday at the Great Wall, before heading to a concert on July 3 in the Forbidden City Concert Hall, both in Beijing, before their final performance - en mass - at the Oriental Art Centre in Shanghai.

"This is a big deal," Harper Choir Director Tom Stauch said. "It's always exciting to be involved with anything in the Olympic movement."

The centerpiece of the combined program will be a rare performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, under the direction of Eric Dale Knapp, conductor-in-residence with MidAmerica Productions at Carnegie Hall in New York.

They also will perform "Call of the Champions," composed by John Williams for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the "Olympic Hymn," arranged by Leonard Bernstein, and "Carmina Burana," by Carl Orff.

Perhaps their biggest challenge has been to prepare the traditional Chinese folk song, "Yellow River Cantata."

"The music is only available with the text in Chinese characters," Stauch says. "There is no transliteration available, so we are working closely with our accompanist, Chiayi Lee, who speaks fluent Mandarin."

Stauch adds that the "Yellow River Cantata" is the most widely recognized and beloved piece in modern Chinese repertoire.

"People throughout the country will recognize it immediately," he adds.

The Barrington Village Singers will also perform a program of American music, at the Forbidden City Concert Hall, featuring some popular spirituals, as well as "Tango to Evora," "Shenandoah," and "One More Day," from the musical, "Les Miserables."

It's not the first time Tobison has taken a choir abroad to perform in a cultural exchange. Two years ago, her choir was chosen to perform under the direction of Knapp as part of the "Voices in the House" at the Sydney Opera House in Australia.

"In Australia, they packed the opera house to hear an American choir," Tobison says. "We're expecting the same thing here. The 'Cultural Overture' is a series of events designed to expose China to fine arts from around the world."

In recent weeks, both the Harper choir and the Barrington choral group have rehearsed round the clock to prepare for their Chinese performances.

Last week, the Barrington singers gave a preview of their program at the "Gala Send-Off Concert" held at the San Filippo Estate in Barrington Hills, while the Harper Concert Choir performed Beethoven's 9th, with the Festival Chorus and symphony orchestra in May at the college, as part of its 40th anniversary.