It’s not just the University’s sports teams that focus on showing off their skills and recruit in the Southeastern Conference — the LSU A Cappella Choir has a few tricks up its sleeve too.
The choir will perform tonight at the University United Methodist Church to kick-off its annual spring recruiting tour, visiting different schools, churches and recital halls around Texas from March 8-14.
Director of choral studies John Dickson said the roughly 50-member choir that mainly focuses on classical music will be performing a repertoire including plain chant, renaissance and contemporary style music.
“Every once in a while, we will dip our toes in the jazz idiom and things like that,” Dickson said. “I learned the word ‘riffing,’ so I’m learning new technical terms for some of this repertoire.”
The title of this year’s program is “Morning Songs,” which comes from Dylan Thomas’ poem, “Fern Hill,” and is composed by John Corigliano, but those in attendance shouldn’t expect to sit and watch one performance after another. Dickson designed the show to provide unconventional a cappella entertainment, including movement, different sets and solos.
The beginning of the performance places the choir throughout the audience and several instrumentalists who will perform on flute, oboe, double bass and cello, alongside the choir.
“I think that movement, creativity, surround sounds and pop culture, by having a soloist sing, are ways to entice or bring people into a program,” Dickson said. “I am also very textual. That is the motive behind all of my music, in rehearsal and in the pieces that I choose — it’s more than themes to me.”
The choir is a class offered at the University, where auditions are held before members can join. It encompasses a few non-majors, undergraduate voice majors and choral music educators, to name a few. The diverse group meets for about six hours each week at the LSU School of Music.
Music freshman Matthew Pham first joined the choir last semester after seeing one of its previous tours while he was still in high school. He chose to attend the University for a number of reasons, but the choir’s performance quality solidified his decision. He said he can’t wait to bring the tour back to his home state of Texas.
“You get this opportunity to share your passion and what you want to do in life with all these people who, to me, aren’t new anymore, but, a few months ago, were brand new people in my life,” Pham said. “It’s so rewarding to be able to look around and know that all of these people have your same goal in mind.”
Along with a diverse group, comes challenges. Pham said it’s sometimes a struggle to find a way to unite everyone’s thought processes and specific visions for a performance, but when it comes together, the result is beautiful.
The choir will invite high schools to perform short selections before its performance, and then, several will display a piece rehearsed prior to the concert, with the choir. This strategy allows the high school choirs to prepare for upcoming contests and also ensures an audience for both groups.
Even if those in attendance aren’t sure how to feel about an a cappella choir, Dickson said he feels the experience will still be positive in today’s music-absorbed world because regardless of how often an individual listens to music, there’s something different about attending a live performance.
“It’s not going to be as perfect as a recording with buttons, knobs and things they can splice, but the human element is there,” Dickson said. “ I think there’s a depth of spirituality to what we do, in the broadest sense of that word.”
Dickson said he is excited for the choir’s upcoming tour, but he’s also looking to increase the school’s choir involvements. The University houses several choirs, including both a men’s and women’s, that are open to singers on campus who may not be majors. He’s mainly targeting those on campus who sung in their high school choirs but weren’t aware of all the University has to offer.
“I think there’s hundreds of singers that ought to be singing in the LSU choirs, all of them,” Dickson said. “Even the non music major, if they’re a good enough singer.”
You can reach Greta Jines on Twitter @TheGretaJines.

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