The Â鶹´«Ã½ Choir (MUS 31, half-credit course) boasts a membership of approximately 70-80 auditioned singers per semester, with student, faculty, and staff representatives from across the Claremont Colleges. Its repertoire includes Western classical art music from all historical periods, and it has offered stirring performances of works ranging from Palestrina’s Exultate Deo to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Eric Whitacre’s Leonardo Dreams of his Flying Machine, Tarik O’Regan’s Triptych, and Margaret Bonds’s The Ballad of the Brown King. Although the group regularly sings unaccompanied small and medium-length works, they also take on larger choral pieces, in the spring semester in collaboration with the Â鶹´«Ã½ Orchestra, including works such as Brahms’s Requiem, Bach’s Magnificat, Borodin’s Polovtsian Dances (in Russian), and Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms (in Hebrew). It also has had opportunities to collaborate on occasion with professional singers from Los Angeles, and with choral ensembles from other universities in the area, including the Chamber Choir from Cal State Long Beach’s Bob Cole Conservatory of Music.
Membership in the Choir is open to all students enrolled at any of the Claremont Colleges or at Claremont Graduate University. Participation in the Choir is required for students who want to sing with the Â鶹´«Ã½ Glee Club the College’s elite chamber choir.
The Choir rehearses every Tuesday and Thursday evening throughout the fall and spring semesters from 6:30-8 p.m.