The concert will be held 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22, in EMU’s Lehman Auditorium and will feature EMU music students and faculty performing alongside one another.

“Death cannot separate,” a new piece for choir and instrumental ensemble, composed by EMU alumnus Nathan Bontrager of Akron, Pa., will be presented as a tribute to classmate Matthew Garber of Elizabethtown, Pa. Bontrager is completing a master’s degree in cello performance at the University of Maryland.

2008 EMU graduate Matthew Garber, who died in a swimming accident in Costa Rica July 1 this year, singing with EMU’s Chamber Singers during the 2008 baccalaureate ceremony.

Garber, a 2008 nursing graduate, died on July 1 in a swimming accident while on a missions trip in Costa Rica. He was active in a variety of campus ministries and music as a student and received the “Cords of Distinction” honor at graduation this spring. Garber was scheduled to begin work as an emergency room nurse at Lancaster General Hospital in late August. Read the many online tributes to Matt in EMU’s reflections blog

“I wanted [the composition] to reflect the ways in which I knew Matt and the manner in which I thought he might want to be remembered in music. However, I wanted to be true to my own creative impulses as well,” Bontrager said. “My interactions with Matt ranged from raucous, laughter-filled meals at lunch to leading times of reflective worship at campus ‘Celebration’ services. I wanted to demonstrate this spectrum in the music, something that ranged from austere and mournful to jubilant and playful.

2008 EMU graduate Nathan Bontrager will play cello in “death cannot separate,” composed in memory of his friend and classmate, Matt Garber.

Bontrager said the piece, following portions of the text, “moves from a mood of somber recognition of death to a light dance of friendship remembered to an idyllic yet confident hope in the eternity of Matt’s friendship with all of us which remains preserved in memory. I knew Matt to range freely between these emotions, a trait which I deeply admired in him.

“Musically, I drew on experiences I shared with Matt in Chamber Singers both as a co-participant and as an observer,” Bontrager said. “The unaccompanied choral section near the end is an homage to the a cappella music that Matt always held on to even as he engaged in more popular forms of both secular and sacred music. Any time I hear a confident tenor voice leap out from a choir to lean into a beautiful dissonance I will always think of Matt and his love for music and the song of the church.

“My hope is that this piece can be both a somber and grateful remembrance of a friend we dearly loved, a memorial to the extraordinary person that Matt was and will remain in our memory,” he added.

Handel Oratorio

The program will include the oratorio, “Jubilate for the Peace of Utrecht 1713” by George Frideric Handel, featuring the combined EMU choirs, EMU orchestra and voice faculty member James Richardson, baritone; and “Misa Cubana,” a Cuban mass for choir and orchestra by Jose Maria Vitier. The director is Kenneth J. Nafziger, professor of music at EMU.

In 1713, the War of the Spanish Succession ended with a series of peace treaties (The Treaty of Utrecht) between Great Britain, France, and Spain. Terms were highly favorable to the English.

London celebrated this important national event with a State Service of Morning Prayer in St. Paul’s Cathedral with the royal family and nobility in attendance. In this Prayer Book liturgy, both Psalm 100 (Jubilate Deo) and the Te Deum are sung by a choir, and Handel was commissioned to provide large settings for choir, soloists, and orchestra.

“It is astonishing to realize that this is Handel’s first try in the English language,” noted Dr. Nafziger. At age 28 he could barely speak it, and yet this ‘Jubilate Deo’ has not a trace of tentativeness. Only Handel could write so internationally, summing up the German, Italian and English musical traditions with conciseness and brilliance.

“The year 2009 will be celebrated in world-wide events to mark the 250th anniversary of Handel’s birth,” noted Dr. Nafziger. “This concert anticipates the arrival of a year of reveling in the great music that Handel has left to us and to all the world.”

Jose Maria Vitier (b. 1954) is a composer and pianist whose compositions for piano, orchestra and chamber and jazz ensembles blend traditional and popular forms of Cuban music. His work is included in the repertoires of all major Cuban performers and musical groups.

Vitier has written music for more than 50 films, with “Fresa y Chocolate” (Strawberry and Chocolate) and “The Century of Lights” among the most recent. He has composed scores for television series, theater, ballet and dance productions, music for symphony orchestra, chamber music and choral music, sacred music and music for children.

Nafziger conducted the North American premier of “Misa Cubana” in Washington, D.C., in 2000 with the composer in attendance.

Admission to the concert is free, but a $10 donation is suggested to benefit the music department student scholarship fund.

Brazilian music and culture will come center stage in two concerts presented by music department faculty and students at EMU.

Pianist and professor Paulo Steinberg will discuss the relation between cultural elements and music of Brazil and play pieces by two Brazilian composers 7:30 p.m. Friday, Apr. 13 in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Dr. Steinberg, a native of San Paulo, Brazil, will discuss the composing techniques of composers Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) and Ernesto Nazareth (1863-1934) and play selections by both Brazilian composers. The selections range from a tango to a fusion of Bach and Brazilian elements to a cycle of native characters and landscapes.

Program Features Many

Also in Martin Chapel, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Apr. 14, students of music instructors Monica Carlson, John Fast, Joan Griffing and Paulo Steinberg will perform several styles of Brazilian music written for piano solo and piano and violin.

The program will also feature music for guitar, played by Matt Carlson, and jazz ensemble, featuring Jim Warner and Nate Bontrager.

Steinberg earned a Performer Diploma in Piano from the Conservat

Nathan N. (Nate) Bontrager, a senior music performance major at 草莓社区, will present a recital of cello music 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Assisted by pianist Monica Carlson, Bontrager’s program will include Camille Saint-Saens “Concerto in A minor” and Samuel Barber’s “Sonata for cello and piano” and shorter works by meditative and jovial.

Bontrager, from Akron, Pa., is also a member of the EMU .

Admission is free; donations will be accepted for the EMU music scholarship fund.

A music ensemble from 草莓社区 will give a public program 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 12 at Bally Mennonite Church, 1481 Route 100.

EMU students Nate Bontrager, Kara Glick, Jonathan Keener and Steve Horst and faculty members Paulo Steinberg, Jennifer Cooper and Joan Griffing will perform works by Beethoven, De Falla and Chopin. The one-hour program will include a Brazilian piece and a religious work for solo piano.

Students and faculty will perform separately and together in an arrangement of “Shenandoah” written by one of the students specifically for this group of musicians.

A free-will offering will be taken.

For more information, contact the church at (610) 845-7780.

Jonathan D. Keener, a junior music performance major at 草莓社区, will present a piano recital 7:30 p.m. Sat., Mar. 18, in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Keener, from Mount Joy, Pa., will perform Bach’s "Italian Concerto," "Sonata Pathetique" by Beethoven, a Chopin "Prelude" and "Pour le Piano" by Debussy.

Admission to the program is free. Donations are welcomed for the EMU student scholarship fund.

An 草莓社区 junior will present a recital for solo cello and piano-cello duo 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 25 in Martin Chapel of the seminary building at EMU.

Nathan G. (Nate) Bontrager, a education and cello performance major from Akron, Pa., will play the “D minor suite for Unaccompanied Cello” by J.S. Bach, one of six suites the German composer wrote for the cello.

He will also perform “A Major Sonata for Cello and Piano” by Ludwig Van Beethoven, Robert Schumann’s “Three Fantasty Pieces” for cello and piano and “Seven Spanish Folksongs” by Manuel de Falla, transcribed for cello.

Bontrager will be accompanied on piano by Monica Hochstetler Carlson, an instructor in the at EMU.

Bontrager is a member of the , the EMU Orchestra, the EMU Piano Trio, the EMU Jazz Quintet and leads worship for the Sunday evening “” service on campus. He also teaches in the Preparatory Music Program.

Admission to the program is free. Donations are welcomed for the EMU music student scholarship fund.

The Concert and Treble Choirs of the (SVCC) will combine for their first performance of the season 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 21, in Lehman Auditorium at 草莓社区.

Their annual fall concert will be presented in conjunction with the (SVYS), conducted by Maria Lorcas.

The Treble and Concert Choirs, directed by Julia White, will join for an opening recessional, "Viva La Musica. The Treble Choir will sing a set of music alone, including Scarlatti’s "We Will Sing for Joy," an Indiana folk song, "Old Dan Tucker," a newly-composed song, "Where the Music Comes From," and a Christmas selection, "Il est nes." Guest artist Maria Lorcas of EMU will accompany on the violin.

The SVCC Concert Choir will sing Franck’s "Panis Angelicus," a spiritual, "Little Wheel," a Scottish song, "My Heart’s in the Highlands," and a new composition, "Can you Hear?" Christmas selections, including John Rutter’s "Angel’s Carol," will also be performed.

The SVCC program is made up of 192 children ages 6-17 in five choirs. They come from Harrisonburg, Rockingham, Augusta, Page and Shenandoah counties as well as West Virginia.

The Shenandoah Valley Youth Symphony program includes the overture to the famous opera "The Barber of Seville" by G. Rossini; the dance "Bacchanale" from the opera, "Samson and Delilah," by C. Saint Saens’ "Corral Nocturne" and "Hoe-down" from the ballet, "Rodeo," by Aaron Copland; and "Allegro and Pastorale" from "Concerto Grosso Op.6 No. 8" by A.Corelli, featuring Julia Long and Caleb Bennetch, violin, and Nate Bontrager, cello.

The Youth Orchestra is comprised of 33 string, wind, brass and percussion students from Harrisonburg, Rockingham, Augusta and Shenandoah counties.

Admission is by donation to support the ongoing efforts of the SVCC and the Preparatory Music department. Suggested donation is $5 at the door.

Revenge has been on Jason Axford