Enjoy a Folk Song Celebration Enjoy a Folk Song Celebration

WSU presents Folk Song Celebration, featuring the WSU Madrigal Singers, Tom Wine, director; the WSU Chamber Singers, Kyle Wheatley, director; and the WSU Women's Ensemble, Stephanie Gilmore, director. The concert is at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 27, in Wiedemann Recital Hall. Tickets are $7 and $2 students with discounts available. For tickets, call 978-3233.

The program begins with a composition by WSU faculty member Dean Roush titled "Stabat Mater." Gilmore said, "The WSU Women's Ensemble is thrilled to present the Wichita premiere of the 10 movement Stabat Mater, for six-part a cappella women's voices with cello interludes."

Roush's "Stabat Mater" was commissioned in 1995 by the Santa Fe Women's Ensemble, who featured the work on their series that year and again in 1998, as well as on their CD "Voices of Light." Since then the piece has been performed every Good Friday in Santa Fe and by colleges in Ohio and South Carolina. This is the first Kansas performance.

The remainder of the concert will feature a variety of both American and international folk song arrangements. Some songs, such as "Buffalo Gals" and James Taylor's "That Lonesome Road," will be immediately familiar to the audience.

Some, like the poignant Irish tune "Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye," have become popularized in America under a different title ("When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again"). Songs from Canada ("Song of the Mira"), the Pacific Rim ("Iddem Dem Malida") and Mongolia ("Naiman Sharag") will offer new insights into choral sounds from around the world.