Shawnee Honor Choir to Present Spring Concert

April 20, 2001

Oklahoma Baptist University preparatory department's Shawnee Honor Choir is preparing for their spring tour of area schools and public concert Sunday, April 29 at 3 p.m. in the university's Yarborough Auditorium.

Friday, April 20 the choir will perform at Will Rogers Elementary and Grove School in Shawnee and Cross Timbers in Tecumseh. Friday, April 27, they will perform at Shawnee's Sequoyah Elementary, and Northwood Elementary and Russel Babb Elementary in Harrah.

Beginning its 18th year, Shawnee Honor Choir, directed by Conchita Hansford, director of the OBU preparatory department, is an auditioned group of 65 fourth- through sixth-graders from Shawnee and the surrounding area. Students in the choir represent 15 different schools including Harrah, Seminole, Stroud and Dale.

The choir will perform selections including "Hine Ma Tov" by Allan Naplan, "Chatter with the Angels," by Charles Colins, "The Old Carrion Crow" by Mary Goetze, and "The Boston Trot" by David J. Elliott.

The program also will feature instrument-only numbers. Handchime players for "Processional," by Barbara Semmann will be: Hope Brown, Sarah Cappo, Lindsey Crnkovic, Haley Hamlin, Timothy O'Gwynn, Andrea Kellogg, Amity Walker and Stephen Whitmore.

Orff instrument players for "Chatter with the Angels" include: Danielle Chin, Samuel Chunn, Olivia Goss, Jessica Hernandez, Whitney Moore, Dane Reeder, Liberty Smith, Katie Tucker and Elizabeth Youngblood.

Chrissy Chavez and Kendra Sanders will play the claves in "The Crawdad Song."

Instrumentalists for "Canon" by Carl Orff include: Jill Betterton, Elizabeth Gruett and Isabel Sanders, soprano glockenspiels; Karen Horne, alto glockenspiel; Ashley and Kirsten Neel, soprano xylophone; Thomas Simons, Kenneth Whitmore, alto xylophone; Drew Davis, bass metallophone; James Gruett, bass xylophone; and Susan Moring, bass bars.

Eliya Ponder, Heather Swadley, Caitlin Yount, Shana Cannon, Natalie Houtz, Alice Walsh, Taylor Duncan and Kelsie Tucker will introduce the songs.

The choir studies and performs a wide variety of music and often incorporates Orff and rhythm instruments. They perform annually in 12 area schools and present two formal public concerts.

Hansford, director of the preparatory department and OBU faculty member since 1990, has taught a variety of courses during her 19 year college teaching career including early childhood and elementary music methods, church music methods, class piano and voice.

Active as a guest conductor and workshop leader, she has presented numerous workshops in Arkansas, Texas, New Mexico and Oklahoma. She also directs the Young Musician's Choir at First Baptist Church of Shawnee. She is a certified Orff teacher.

OBU's preparatory department, a program of the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts, is the largest department of its kind in the state, with over 300 students presently enrolled in the program. It has served as a model for other universities in developing similar programs.

For additional information contact Hansford at 405-878-2319 or 273-2273.