Choirs, Symphony join for Oratorio

The internationally acclaimed tenor John Aler will join the Pittsburg State University Choirs and the Southeast Kansas Symphony for the annual spring oratorio at 3 p.m. on Sunday, April 29, at Pittsburg’s First United Methodist Church at 5th and Pine. The program, entitled “Heroic Music for Voices and Orchestra,” is drawn from the “Egmont Overture,” by Ludwig van Beethoven; and “Te Deum,” by Hector Berlioz. The PSU Choirs are under the direction of Susan Marchant and the Southeast Kansas Symphony is under the direction of Stella Hastings.

Aler is one of the most acclaimed and admired singers on the international stage. He is a frequent performer with such orchestras as the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago and San Francisco. He has sung in Europe with the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Orchestre Nationale de France and the BBC Symphony, among many others. He has performed at the major opera houses of the world including the Royal Opera Covent Garden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Vienna, Munich, Salzburg, Hamburg, Geneva, Madrid and Brussels as well as New York City Opera, the Washington Opera and Santa Fe.

Aler has an extensive concert repertoire that ranges from the evangelist in the “Passions” of Bach to the “War Requiem and Serenade” for tenor horn and strings of Benjamin Britten and Sondheim's Sweeney Todd. Aler is featured on three Grammy Award-winning recordings and can be heard on more than 60 recordings on more than a dozen labels.

Tickets for the performance are $7 for adults and $5 for students and seniors. Tickets may be purchased in advance at the PSU Ticket Office in the Overman Student Center or at the door the day of the performance. For more information, call the PSU Department of Music at 620-235-4466.

---Pitt State---