The annual Earthtones concert is taking place this Saturday April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at Goshen College Music Center’s Sauder Concert Hall. Earthtones is the annual spring choral concert, and concert of world choral music. Subtitled “Songs from Many Cultures,” the concert features a wide variety of choral works from countries and cultures all over the world that is sung in a variety of languages. Scott Hochstetler, associate professor of music, and Debra Brubaker, professor of music, will direct the concert this year. Alongside teaching choral, vocal and opera theatre programs at GC, Hochstetler has led a variety of church,...

By Frances Fonseca • April 14, 2016 • News

Goshen’s Chamber Choir has existed since the 1970s, with a focus in chamber a capella music that highlights the college’s best singers. The choir grew out of conductor Mary Oyer’s Motet Singers in the 1950s and ‘60s. When Doyle Preheim, a former professor of music, started conducting in the 1970s, the choir became the chamber ensemble that it is today, with the forty-odd years of music demonstrating the growth and dynamic ability of the choir. Currently, Scott Hochstetler, associate professor of music, is the conductor. This is his fourth year running the Chamber Choir. Hochstetler chooses a variety of music...

By Elsa Lantz • April 7, 2016 • Features

The music department presented a piano recital “marathon” last Saturday, March 18. Reuben Leatherman, a sophomore, Jacob Zehr, a sophomore, and Wade Troyer, a junior, all performed. This was a slightly more unusual approach to piano recitals. Typically, music recitals happen during the Friday noon music hour and one musician is showcased. However, Troyer, Zehr and Leatherman all were unable to sign up for dates earlier in the semester. Instead, they were all placed together on Saturday. Troyer performed his junior recital. He played the Grieg Piano Concerto, something he has been working on in parts for the last two...

By Elsa Lantz • March 31, 2016 • Arts

Born in Chicago 20 years ago, Abraham “Abe” Medellin, a first-year, is known around campus for greeting everyone he sees and performing during Open Mic nights and Kick Off. Medellin is an interdisciplinary major with concentrations in music, broadcasting and marketing. He came to Goshen College because of the communications department and the business department, but has started to swing into media production and music. Medellin’s parents met in Chicago during a missions’ trip. His mom is from Sao Paulo, Brazil, and his dad from Aguas Calientes, Mexico. Though he grew up speaking English in the classroom, at home he...

By Elsa Lantz • March 31, 2016 • Features Luis Pérez Lerchundi • March 31, 2016 • Features

During spring break this year, Goshen College’s Chamber Choir went on tour, traveling up and down the east coast and performing each day. They left Saturday morning, February 20 and arrived in Akron, New York later that night. The following morning, they led the church service at Akron Mennonite and then left for Carthage/Lowville area, also in upstate New York. From then on, each day contained a concert and sometimes a few workshops with local schools. After Carthage was Ithaca, NY, then Charleston, West Virginia; Washington DC, Lancaster, PA; and finally Kidron, Ohio before finally returning to Indiana. Each place...

By Luis Pérez Lerchundi • March 3, 2016 • News

Lukas Thompson is perhaps a familiar face around campus; he was in “Godspell” last semester, performed in the “Miscast Cabaret” last weekend and is often seen around campus in a well-picked bow tie. Thompson is a first-year student from the Goshen area. He is a vocal performance major, and is involved in theatre. “My debut show was ‘Charleston Junior’ at Goshen Middle school my eighth grade year,” Thompson said. “I decided to audition for it because I thought it would be fun.” Thompson’s involvement in the show led to him being in all four musicals that his high school put...

By Elsa Lantz • February 18, 2016 • Features

Vocal innovator Bobby McFerrin will take the stage in Sauder Concert Hall for this year’s Performing Arts Series Valentine’s Day concert. This will be McFerrin’s second appearance on the Sauder stage. McFerrin last performed in Goshen during the winter of 2009. According to Maryn Munley, performance venue production manager at the Goshen College Music Center, his 2009 performance was a “huge hit.” This weekend’s concert is also expected to be a major success, especially because this time, McFerrin will be joined onstage by Goshen College’s own Chamber Choir, who performed last year with Garrison Keillor. Katie Shank, a sophomore alto,...

By Jenae Longenecker • February 11, 2016 • Arts

Seven students will be performing individual arias and concertos with the Goshen College Symphony Orchestra in the 56th annual Concerto Aria concert. The concert will take place on Saturday, February 6 in Sauder Concert Hall. The Concerto Aria is an opportunity to showcase the musical talent at Goshen College. In the fall, the music department auditioned students in front of a panel of faculty, who then chose the winners based on the quality of their performances. Vince Kurtz, a junior music and physics double major, said, “Audition situations are always a bit odd, because you only play for a few...

By Lexa Magnuson • February 4, 2016 • News

As evidenced by its own choirs and instrumental groups, Goshen College knows music. This affinity for the musical arts is also observed through the college’s Performing Arts Series, in which a lineup of talented artists come to campus and perform. On Friday, Goshen College will welcome Rosanne Cash, a Grammy winning artist, to Sauder Hall. Cash, the daughter of country music legend Johnny Cash, was born on May 24, 1955 in Nashville, Tennessee; the heart of country music. Johnny Cash is considered a father of country music and has produced hits such as “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom PrisonBlues.”...

By Carter Mckay-Epp • January 28, 2016 • Arts

On January 15, the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) held their annual division competition in Goshen College’s Music Center. Goshen is located within the Music Teachers National Association’s East Central Division, which encompasses five different states: Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio. Every year, the division competition rotates between each of the states, this year’s division competition being held in Indiana. The competition is also hosted at a different university each year, and this is Goshen College’s first time hosting the event. Solomia Soroka, professor of music at Goshen College and Music Teachers National Association member and coordinator, said that...

By Riley Mills • January 28, 2016 • News

Galed Krisjayanta, a third-year student at Goshen College, released his first album at the age of 10. Cassettes, CDs, DVDs, and even karaoke versions of him singing traditional Indonesian folk songs have been sold, and every song has a music video. Krisjayanta’s album was used to raise money for the people of Yogyakarta, Indonesia, which had been devastated by an earthquake in which nearly 3,500 people were killed. That’s where he found the power of music in healing. Krisjayanta was born in Yogyakarta and spent his first eight years there. But in 2006 when the earthquake struck, his family was...

By Jordan Waidelich • January 14, 2016 • Features

Every Tuesday evening, 53-year-old Todd Yoder, Goshen College’s major gifts officer, packs up his belongings and heads to the Fireman’s Union Hall in South Bend to play the bagpipe. Yes, bagpipe. “To make life interesting you have to be willing to try new things,” he said. “It’s a lot easier to sit around on Saturdays and watch football, but I’d rather be challenged and learn something new.” Yoder has quickly learned that this hobby has become a passion. “I love it,” he said. “I absolutely love the challenge of learning something new every single day. That’s what life is all...

By Chandler Ingle • December 3, 2015 • Features

Jorge Abreu Toyens, a fifth-year music major from Humacao, Puerto Rico, will present his senior violin recital on Dec. 9. This recital is not only one of Toyens’ last requirements as a music major, but also one of his last requirements before traveling to Barcelona for graduate school in February. Toyens was accepted at the renowned “Escola de Musica de Catalunya,” his first-choice graduate school, without even presenting a formal audition. In July 2014, Toyens was attending a music festival in Spain when he met someone who knew a professor from the Escola de Musica. After the festival, Toyens decided...

By Christina Hofer • December 3, 2015 • Arts

The highly acclaimed, Grammy award-winning Soweto Gospel Choir took the stage on Sunday as part of the 2015-2016 Performing Arts Series. The group is a choir from the Soweto Township, a part of Johannesburg, South Africa. Their performance included gospel songs in several native South African languages as well as English. The turnout for the concert was significant, with the majority of the hall filled. The choir was not unfamiliar with the Sauder Hall stage as they had given a concert for the Performing Arts Series at Goshen College in 2007. The concert included upbeat African drumming in all of...

By Emma Koop Liechty • November 12, 2015 • Arts

The 2012 revised version of “Godspell” will open this weekend as Goshen College’s Fall Main Stage. ”Godspell” follows the story of Jesus and his disciples in a modern setting. The story is about the community of Jesus’ followers and how they come together as a group, growing together in their common love for Jesus. Fourteen students make up the “Godspell” cast, including sophomore Jacob Zehr as Jesus and senior Ben Ganger as John the Baptist/Judas Iscariot, as well as seniors Paul Zehr, Martin Flowers and Christina Hofer; juniors Galed Krisjayanta, Maggie Weaver, Sadie Gustafson-Zook and Morgan Short; sophomores Emily Evans...

By Christi Sessa • November 12, 2015 • Arts