FARMINGTON – On Saturday, June 25, the international award-winning men’s choral group, Mastersingers USA, will perform at Nordica Auditorium, University of Maine Farmington, at 7:30 p.m. Under the direction of Bruce McInnes, the chorus of over 90 men will sing sacred and secular music, folksongs, spirituals, and contemporary music.
The men in Mastersingers USA have achieved and sustained the highest professional standards under the leadership of their founder and Music Director, Professor Bruce G. McInnes, who is presently Adjunct Professor of Music at UMF. This choir represents the highest caliber of male choral singing in the United States. They have performed in some of the world’s greatest cathedrals, at major festivals, in small village churches, concert halls, amphitheaters, and on street corners as the spirit moves them.
The repertoire of the Mastersingers includes sacred and secular music, folksongs, spirituals, and contemporary music spanning some five hundred years of music history. There are works by masters of polyphony such as Josquin, deKerle, Palestrina, Vittoria, Gallus, Allegri, and Lotti, as well as 20th century compositions by Bédard, Biebl, Clausen, Heath, Mawby, Theimer, and Thompson. There are also works by Schubert, Bruckner, Gounod, Kedrov, and Tchaikovsky. The repertoire is widely varied, challenging, and mostly a cappella.
The Mastersingers won first place in the prestigious International Musical Eisteddfod in Llangollen, North Wales during their 2003 tour, and again in 2005 when they represented the United States at the First International Congress of Men’s Choirs in Barcelona. Their 2010 tour saw them performing in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and St. Petersburg, Russia.
Men are selected for membership in the Mastersingers based on the extent of their musical and singing experience, and on the timbre and quality of their voice. What they have in common is a love of choral music and the fact that each has, at one time or another, been a member of a choir conducted by Bruce McInnes. Most have participated in previous international concert tours under the leadership of Professor McInnes, whose choirs have now performed in 65 countries on five continents.
Members of the Mastersingers come from all over the United States, reuniting once a year in a different part of the country to rehearse and perform. Every third year they take an international tour. Mastersingers have distinguished themselves in many professions: they are doctors, lawyers, businessmen, clergymen, professors, editors, artists, school teachers, civil servants, and university students. They range in age from 18 to 75, and most are graduates of some of the most prestigious colleges and universities in America: Amherst, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Haverford, MIT, Pacific, St. Lawrence, Stanford, Tufts, Yale and the Universities of California, Chicago, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
The concert is sponsored by the Arts Institute of Western Maine, an affiliate of UMF. General admission is $15; children under 16, $5. Advance ticket purchase is recommended. Email aiwmtickets@yahoo.com, or send a check to AIWM Tickets, PO Box 325, Farmington, 04938.
For more information on Mastersingers USA, see their website, www.mastersingersusa.org. For information on the Arts Institute of Western Maine, see http://artsinstitute.org/.
