Performance Opportunities
Excellence in performance is encouraged through frequent student recitals, attendance at professional concerts, and participation in the Department's choral and instrumental ensembles. Music majors and majors in other disciplines are invited (though audition is required) to participate in the performance groups, which include University Concert Choir, Women's Chorus, Concert Orchestra, Jazz Ensemble, Vanguard Singers & Band, Jazz Combo, Barbershop and Beautyshop Quartets, and small String, Woodwind, Brass, Percussion, and Handbell Ensembles. Separate audition is required for the smaller ensembles. All ensembles participate in various performance opportunities, throughout the community and on campus. In addition to these opportunities select ensembles also present a traveling tour each year.
Recent tours have included Mexico, Hawaii, the South Pacific, Japan, Canada, western coastal states, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and the Mid-west. In summer of 2005, Vanguard Singers & Band presented a month-long tour in the People's Republic of China and South Korea. In 2003, Concert Choir and Women's Chorus, under the direction of the guest conductor Dr. James L. Melton, performed Vidalia's Gloria, and G.F. Handel's Coronation Anthems at Carnegie Hall. They performed at Carnegie Hall the Spring of 2006, where they performed various works, including Felix Mendelssohn's Psalm 42 (As the Hart Pants).
Musical styles include sacred classics, hymns, gospel songs, spirituals and contemporary Christian choral and instrumental music. Scholarships are available to qualified members of these ensembles. The School of Communication and the Fine Arts frequently publishes recordings of these ensembles. Recent recordings include the University Concert Choir's, "Sing Me to Heaven" University Women Chorus', "I Will Rejoice," the Music Department's "Emmanuel," Vanguard Singers & Band's, "Over all the Earth" the Barbershop and Beautyshop's "Simply A Cappella," and the newest release in Spring, 2006, the Jazz Ensemble and Combo's, "Sea Changes". [Please contact our Music Events Office at 714-662-5272 or concerts@vanguard.edu to purchase CDs.]
The Music Department frequently collaborates with the Theatre Department for musical theatre production. Recent shows have included "Into the Woods," " The Secret Garden," "How to Succeed in Business without really trying" Spring, 2008, will feature "Thoroughly Modern Millie."