A Note from Gary Schwartz, Director, Carson Chamber Singers,
To Carson Chamber Singers and Other Potential Singers
Posted: Aug. 1, 2024

Good morning, Musicians!

I am very excited to announce our fall concert, "A Night on Broadway." It will include a variety of show tunes from the 20th century, PLUS a medley of songs from Wicked in honor of its 20 years on Broadway and the upcoming film release!

The fall concert dates are Friday, October 18, 2024, at 7pm at Shepherd of the Sierra Lutheran Church in south Carson City, and Saturday, October 26, 2024, at 4pm at First United Methodist Church in downtown Carson City. (Our second fall concert will be the annual Holiday Treat concert with the Carson City Symphony, Sunday, December 15, 2024, 4pm at the Bob Boldrick Theatre in the Community Center - program TBD).

Rehearsals are 7-8:30pm Tuesdays beginning August 13 at the LDS Church at 411 N. Saliman Rd., Carson City (near Carson High School). (Our final rehearsal on Tuesday, October 15, 2024, will be at Shepherd of the Sierra, and if needed we'll have a brush-up rehearsal on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, location TBD.)

All are welcome to sing. There is no audition required, and you are not required to attend all the rehearsals.

If you are interested, please fill out the form linked here: https://forms.gle/Vi5vyZEYUFjH8jQS9. (I tried to make it short & easy this time - no logins, no extra questions - please don't skip it.)

Gary Schwartz
Director, Carson Chamber Singers

Carson Chamber Singers to Begin 40th Season
Rehearsals Start Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Media Release - July 31, 2024: Calling singers! The Carson Chamber Singers, a performing group of the Carson City Symphony Association, is beginning rehearsals for their 40th season on Tuesday, August 13, 2024. Weekly rehearsals are from 7:00 to 8:30 p.m. at the LDS Church, 411 N. Saliman Road in Carson City. Carson Chamber Singers, directed by Western Nevada College (WNC) professor, Dr. Gary Schwartz, is open to singers high-school age and above.

The first concerts of the season, "A Night on Broadway," will be on Friday, October 18, 2024, at 7:00 p.m. at Shepherd of the Sierra Lutheran Church, and on Saturday, October 26, 2024, at 4:00 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, in Carson City. The concert program features hit songs from a dozen shows, and includes music from "Wicked."

For more information, registration, and rehearsal schedule, contact the Director at ccsingersnv@gmail.com. Participation is free; singers are encouraged to join the Carson City Symphony Association.

Founded in 1985 as an affiliate of the Carson City Symphony Association, the Carson Chamber Singers have sung at several venues in northern Nevada and in California. They have sung with the Reno Philharmonic and perform regularly with the Carson City Symphony.

Carson Chamber Singers is supported in part by public funds through a grant from the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts, and by private donations.

Photo: Director Gary Schwartz shown directing the Carson Chamber Singers in concert at First United Methodist Church last year.

Dr. Gary Schwartz
Director, Carson Chamber Singers

Gary Schwartz sang with Carson Chamber Singers for about ten years before being appointed Director in 2023. He was director of Carson City Symphony's Consort Canzona early music ensemble for about 6 years.

Dr. Schwartz has been singing and performing since high school. His first professional singing job came during college when he became a paid choir member at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, DC. He traveled to Rome with that choir and had the opportunity to sing mass at St. Peter's Cathedral. Later, he followed other academic pursuits, eventually earning a PhD in Mathematics, but along the way he continued to perform when possible.

After receiving his doctorate and teaching for four years, Gary returned to school to study music theory and composition at Northern Illinois University, became a member of their

Chamber Choir, and studied conducting with Dr. Eric Johnson. He was a founding member of Johnson's professional chamber choir, Cor Cantiamo.

As a graduate student and teaching assistant, he substituted for professors, teaching Music Theory and Aural Skills. Several of his compositions were performed by various ensembles and two received awards from the University, including a song cycle for soprano and orchestra that was performed during the annual Concerto Competition.

When Dr. Schwartz moved to Carson City, he joined the Western Nevada Musical Theatre Company, performing and assisting with musical direction. He has also performed with the Reno Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra, TOCCATA (Tahoe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus), the Carson Chamber Singers, and Consort Canzona.

Sign up for Holiday Treat Concert Participation on
Sun., Dec. 12, 2021

Ricky wrote on 10/26/2021: If you are joining the choir for our Holiday concert please REGISTER and keep your black folders [from the Rachmaninoff project]. If you are not, please return your black folders at next week's rehearsal.

Here is some additional information about Holiday Treat rehearsals:
Chorister Participant Registration
Participation requires attendance in all rehearsals with a maximum of one absence.
11/23 Choir @ LDS church 7-9pm
11/30 Choir @ LDS church 7-9pm
Joining symphony on 12/1 @ Carson High School 7pm (choir portion at the front of rehearsal)
12/7 Choir @ LDS church 7-9pm
12/11 Dress Rehearsal @ Community Center (some time between 9am and 12:20pm)
12/12 Concert @ Community Center 4pm

Rachmaninoff All-Night Vigil
Rehearsals starting Aug. 24, 2021

A Message from Ricky Hutton, Conductor, Carson Chamber Singers

I am very excited to announce Carson Chamber Singers' next concert:

Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil (commonly referred to as his "Vespers").

My hope is to program a choral masterwork each Fall moving forward. If you are not familiar with this work in its entirety, you may have heard No. 6 Bogoroditse Devo which is commonly excerpted as a stand-alone concert piece. Or you may be familiar with this composer through his piano concertos.

All-Night Vigil will be a "desirable difficulty" for us (i.e. a learning task that requires a considerable, but rewarding amount of effort). In other words, our work on this will be well worth it- trust me.

The piece is written for a cappella chorus in the language of Church Slavonic and based on Eastern Orthodox chant. It is absolutely gorgeous. Don't let the language frighten you away, I have resources to help us with the text and there is a great deal of repetition in the music. We may perform selections if time does not allow us to tackle the whole piece. There is often divisi (SSAATTBB) so we will need a large chorus including Tenors and Basses. The Bass II part even descends to a low B-flat! (If you'd like, take a listen to the end of that movement here).

We will have a mezzo-soprano soloist and a tenor soloist. We are looking at venues with very reverberant acoustics for a Saturday night concert to stay close to the performance practice of a Russian All-Night Vigil. We will hold a total of 10 Tuesday night rehearsals (skipping one week in October due to a WCSD choral festival). The rehearsal location in Carson City is not yet finalized, but I wanted to get you these dates so you could reserve the project in your schedules.

Rehearsals (7-8:30pm): 8/24, 8/31, 9/7, 9/14, 9/21, 9/28, 10/5, 10/12, 10/26, 11/2
Dress Rehearsal: Friday 11/5, 7pm
Concert: Saturday 11/6, 7pm

Take a listen and please fill out this very short FORM by 8/14 so I know who will be participating. If you know of anyone who would be interested in this masterwork who may not have received this email, please forward to them as well.

Ricky Hutton
Choral Director
Fine Arts Department Chair
Spanish Springs HS

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Resources for project
The Facebook link for this project (Sat. & Sun. event dates, ticket sales, etc.) is available - click HERE.
Voice Part Learning Tracks from CyberBass - click HERE.
Diction Tracks - click HERE.
The first rehearsal, on Aug. 24, was recorded. Click HERE to view it on YouTube (unlisted).
The second rehearsal, on Aug. 31, was recorded. Click HERE to view it on YouTube (unlisted).
The third rehearsal, on Sept. 7, was recorded. Click HERE to view it on YouTube (unlisted).
The fourth rehearsal, on Sept. 14, was recorded. Click HERE to view it on YouTube (unlisted).
The fifth rehearsal, on Sept. 21, was not recorded. (Oops!).
The sixth rehearsal, on Sept. 28, was recorded. Click HERE to view it on YouTube (unlisted).
The seventh rehearsal, on Oct. 5, was recorded. Click HERE to view it on YouTube (unlisted).
The eighth rehearsal, on Oct. 12, was recorded in 2 parts:

• Click HERE to view part 1 on YouTube (unlisted).
• Click HERE to view part 2 on YouTube (unlisted).

"Far From Me"
Project for early 2021

The goal of this project is to produce a virtual video recording of the Carson Chamber Singers performing music by Claudio Monteverdi and Elaine Hagenberg. Spread the word- this is GREAT music, and I would love to have even more singers join the virtual choir.

To explain the concept, the pieces are both centered around G (mixolydian, minor & major) and have texts that have many connections. We will begin with the Monteverdi and then move right into the Hagenberg. The Monteverdi madrigal is in Italian and is quite a bit more challenging than the Hagenberg which is very simple. The madrigal also sounds best with smaller numbers, so it is up to you if you would like to do both pieces or just the Hagenberg. If you are ready for the challenge the madrigal presents, I'd love to hear your video for it. I'm hoping to take 10-12 singers for that piece.

The Hagenberg will require no more than two rehearsals, but a third and fourth rehearsal will be necessary for the Monteverdi. - "Ricky"

The resource page for this project is at http://ccsymphony.com/farfromme2021.htm.

The Carson Chamber Singers, was founded in 1985 by Judy Monson as a performing group of the Carson City Symphony Association and was conducted by Michael Langham from 2012 to 2019. They were conducted by Bill Belcher from 2019 to 2020. They have sung at several venues in Carson City, and in Reno, Virginia City, Minden, Genoa, Fallon, and Sacramento. They participated with the Symphony in the national 2000 Continental Harmony project, and sang at opening ceremonies for the 2005 Nevada Legislature, the 2006 National VFW Convention, and the 2007 and 2017 National American Legion Conventions. In 2010, Carson Chamber Singers premiered The Stars Above The Hill by David Dickau, commissioned in celebration of their twenty-fifth season. They have presented concerts in memory of Sandy Hook School victims, participated in the Northern Nevada American Guild of Organists' choir festival in Reno, and performed Artown concerts with the St. Cecilia Choir at Trinity Episcopal Church in Reno.

The Chamber Singers perform in three or more concerts with the Carson City Symphony each year. They are featured on the Symphony's Holiday Treat concert in December, Pops Party concert in June, and Genoa Americana Celebration on July 4. They sang in the Symphony's "A Nevada 150 Concert" in October 2014, "Spring Celebration" in April 2015, and several subsequent concerts.

Carson Chamber Singers sang for several years with the Reno Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra at the Sierra Philharmonic League's annual July 4 Pops in the Park concerts in Genoa, Nev. They also performed Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 1, A Sea Symphony, with the Reno Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra directed by Laura Jackson at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts in Reno in April 2014.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the chorus worked on two virtual presentations under the direction of Richard "Ricky" Hutton. The first performance, of Brahms' "Geistliches Lied (Sacred Song), Op. 30," can be viewed on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XM57-Ar-y6Q or via the Carson City Symphony's YouTube Channel. The second project, on Sweelinck's "Hodie Cristus natus est," is described on a resource page at http://ccsymphony.com/hodie2020.htm.

Carson Chamber Singers Director
Richard "Ricky" Hutton

Richard Hutton was officially appointed Director of the Carson Chamber Singers in early 2021, but his association with the Carson Chamber Singers goes back to the summer of 2019. During 2020, he also undertook the design and execution two virtual performance projects with the group.

Hutton is in his fifth year as Choral Director at Spanish Springs High School. He is also the Fine Arts Department Chair. He has resided in Reno, NV for eight years teaching various levels of music at Sage Ridge School and Hug High School. He has served as an Interim Choral Director for the Reno Philharmonic Chorus and was also the Artistic Director of the Reno Baroque Ensemble. He serves as the Nevada Music Educators Association's Washoe Zone Representative.

Richard holds a Master of Music in Choral Conducting degree, with distinction, from Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, New Jersey. His primary teachers there were Dr. Joe Miller, Dr. James Jordan, and Dr. Andrew Megill, three of America's most sought-after choral conductors. During his second year of graduate studies, Richard was a graduate assistant conductor for Westminster Schola Cantorum, the choir of the sophomore class, and was an assistant conductor for the Westminster Community Chorus and Chamber Choir. He has sung Tenor or Countertenor in such renowned ensembles as the Westminster Choir, Westminster Kantorei, Westminster Symphonic Choir, Westminster Williamson Voices, and Westminster Chamber Choir. Richard was North Shore Choral Society's Apprentice Conductor, worked with the choral ensembles of Evanston Township High School and Maine West High School, was an adjunct music faculty member at Princeton Day School, and a semifinalist in the National ACDA Conducting Competition.

Prior to completing his graduate degree, he received his Bachelor of Arts in both Music and Philosophy with a minor in Bioethics, magna cum laude from Loyola University, Chicago, where he studied voice and conducting with Dr. Julia Davids. In past summers, he sang with the Westminster Choir at Spoleto Festival U.S.A., the Westminster Chamber Choir and Festival Chorus, and conducted and sang in the Norfolk Chamber Choir of Yale University.

He enjoys directing musicals at his schools including Legally Blonde, Spamalot, Footloose, Beauty and the Beast, and The Wizard of Oz. He and his wife Ashton and daughter Pearl love the Reno-Tahoe area. He is also a lay pastor at Living Stones Church Reno.

Rehearsal information

The Carson Chamber Singers normally rehearse Tuesday nights (except during the summer) at the LDS Church, 411 N. Saliman Rd., Carson City, NV.