NGU Skyliner

Hannah Reynolds
Staff Writer

Eleven concerts in six days: the North Greenville University concert choir has been busy this past week and a half.

From March 19 through March 24, the 50 members of the choir travelled all over South Carolina on their annual spring tour. From Gaffney to Mt. Pleasant, the choir presented its program to receptive audiences in several churches, retirement centers and Christian schools.

Barry Combs, director of choral activities and church music program coordinator at NGU, conducted the choir. Combs said there are two primary goals when going on choir tour. First of all, the choir goes on tour to make church congregations and other groups across the state aware of NGU. The second purpose is to allow the students the opportunity to increase the performance of their repertoire. When the choir sings its music at more than just one concert, it improves.

Combs commented, “Their quality and precision increase.”

He believes that the concert choir reached both of its goals successfully.

Combs believes that the choir had a tremendous impact through going on tour, particularly touching audiences at churches and retirement centers. Combs commented that people spoke to him as well as to the choir members saying how appreciative they were of the choir’s coming to visit. Audience members were also appreciative of the type of music sung by the choir.

“Choral music—they don’t hear it as much as they used to,” said Combs.

When asked about fun memories from the trip, Combs admitted, “Every year is different.”
This year, Combs said that the choir had a lot of fun as a group. He particularly enjoyed becoming better acquainted with the students.

For Hanna Herrell, freshman church music, the most memorable part of choir tour was not actually performing.

“I loved the bus rides. The bus rides were the best because I got to know everyone better,” Herrell said.

“Overall, it was a really wonderful experience,” said Combs neatly summing up his thoughts about choir tour.

Tags: Spring 2010, Vol. 110 - Issue 9

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