Freeport Singers to Perform African Music

The Greater Freeport Community Chorus will present “Missa Kenya and Songs Inspired by Africa” on May 5 at Sacred Heart.

The 75-voice chorus will perform at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 5, at Sacred Heart Church, 326 Main St., Yarmouth.The group is directed by Virgil Bozeman IV and accompanied by pianist Kellie Moody. 

The centerpiece of the concert will be the five-movement “Missa Kenya,” a setting of Mass texts. American composer Paul Basler wrote the piece after he spent a sabbatical year at a Nairobi, Kenya, university. He writes in the forward to the composition that it fuses Kenyan musical styles with 20th century American classical styles. He describes it as his “gift to the warm, loving friends I left behind in Nairobi.”

Among other pieces to be performed are “Famine Song,” which expresses the emotions of Africans who experienced the famine of the 1980s, and “Rain, Rain, Beautiful Rain,” by Joseph Shabalala, founder of the South African choral group Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

Three guest musicians will be joining the chorus for the spring concert: Annegret Baier and Shirsten Lundblad, percussion, and Caitlin Ramsey, French horn. Residents of about 15 Midcoast towns make up the Greater Freeport Community Chorus. Concert admission is $10 for adults, free to anyone under 18. Tickets may be purchased at the door.

Visit the chorus on Facebook or at  www.gfccsings.org for more information.