Micah Hunter debuts as chorale director

The Glacier Chorale and Chamber Singers present “Voices in Autumn” Saturday and Sunday in Whitefish and Kalispell. 

The concerts will be the inaugural performance for the Glacier Chorale under its new conductor, Micah Hunter. The Glacier Symphony and Chorale enters its 32nd season.

Hunter has programmed some of the great masterpieces from Bach and Mozart to be sung along with modern folk songs and favorite classical hymns. Repertoire ranges from the 16th through the 21st centuries. Madrigals such as “Weep, O Mine Eyes” will be paired with the English hymn “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.”  Western music will be represented by folk songs such as “Shenandoah” and Londonderry Air. Straightforward arrangements of African American spirituals and modern classical works by Eric Whitacre and others will complete the repertoire.

The November concert will be followed Dec. 12-14 with a the Glacier Symphony and Chorale’s annual Messiah concerts in Bigfork, Kalispell and Whitefish, featuring a chamber orchestra. “One of those goals is to broaden the scope of choral literature,” Hunter said. “I think audiences should be challenged when they listen and I think musicians should be challenged to be versatile and how they put their hearts into a variety of styles.”

The “Voices in Autumn” concerts will be 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 22 at Whitefish Performing Arts Center and at 3 p.m. Sunday ,Nov. 23 at the Glacier High School Performance Hall in Kalispell. Tickets are available on the website www.gscmusic.org or by calling 407-7000. All youth through grade 12 are admitted free.