There will be a Willy Wonka song – but not a Willie Nelson one – when the Monmouth College Chorale and Chamber Choir go “on the road again” for the groups’ annual spring break tour.
This year’s destinations include St. Louis and Des Moines, with public performances in the nearby cities of Oakville, Missouri, and Waukee, Iowa.
“Tour is always a fantastic experience,” said the ensembles’ director, music professor Tim Pahel. “The students get to know each better and do lots of fun things together, and we get to rehearse and perform our music multiple times and get better and better as a group.”
The 38 students on the tour will sing at 7:30 p.m. March 8 at St. Paul’s United Church of Christ (5508 Telegraph Road) in Oakville and at 7:30 p.m. March 10 at the Waukee United Methodist Church (2075 SE LA Grant Parkway). The groups will also visit high schools in the Iowa cities of Davenport, Grinnell and Des Moines.
In between the public concerts, Monmouth’s singers will also perform a few selections in St. Louis during a 10:45 a.m. church service March 9 at Memorial Presbyterian Church (201 South Skinker Boulevard).
Those three events will lead up to the groups’ annual “home concert,” which will be presented at 3 p.m. March 23 in the Kasch Performance Hall of the college’s Dahl Chapel and Auditorium.
The singers will perform a variety of styles, from Slovenian folk music to a tune from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.
“Ta na solbici,” arranged by Samo Vovk, is “a very fun Slovenian folk song with lots of clapping and stomping,” said Pahel. “The song is about a wedding, and the people clapped and stomped so loud when they were celebrating that the church bells were drowned out.”
The selections also include Dan Forrest’s “The Sun Never Says,” which Pahel called a “beautiful, expressive piece,” and a “strange, dissonant, powerful” song by Alberto Grau titled “Kasar mie la gaji,” which translates to “the earth is tired.”
Vea Vavrosky ’25 of Reynolds, Illinois, and Ray Shaul ’27 of Bourbonnais, Illinois, have solos in “So I’ll Sing with My Voice,” an “exuberant and exciting” song by Dominick Argento, and the Willy Wonka tune is “a beautiful vocal jazz arrangement” of “Pure Imagination.”
Some of the “fun things” that Pahel mentioned the students will experience include visiting the Gateway Arch, the City Museum and the St. Louis Zoo, as well as touring the golden-domed Iowa State Capitol.
***Courtesy of Barry McNamara, Monmouth College***
