Goshen College’s music and theater programs have long been part of the school, but now a new minor will combine them both. The musical theater minor, introduced to the campus this year, will give students the opportunity to participate in musical theater more than ever before. “This was a missing piece to the already very strong theater and music departments,” said Tom Myers, new dance instructor in the theater department. “By including this minor, Goshen College becomes even stronger in attracting students into their music and theater programs, as this will…help them prepare for a career in performing or teaching...

By Cristina Jantz • September 21, 2017 • Arts

Before Roger Lewis fell head over heels for the tuba, he first fell in love with a woman named Irene. Today, Lewis is happily married and settled in Sturgis, Michigan, and teaches at Goshen College as an adjunct professor of music specializing in low brass instruments. However, the journey Lewis took to get to where he is now was not easy. When Lewis graduated high school at the age of 17, he moved from Chester, New Jersey to New York City to attend Mannes College of Music where he met the young woman who changed his life forever. Irene studied...

By Abby King • September 14, 2017 • Features

For the past 20 years, the Goshen College’s Performing Art Series has brought many performers to Sauder Hall over the years, each of them exciting and outstanding in their genres. This year’s season will bring back some familiar faces as well as new ones. On Saturday, Sept. 16, Goshen College will be visited by Canadian Brass, a quintet that has earned a international reputation. Consisting of two trumpets, a horn, a trombone and a tuba, the group is known for doing justice to works by revered composers, and they aren’t afraid to throw some comedy into their performances. Mary Chapin...

By Irina Gladun • September 7, 2017 • Arts

The committee for the new Mennonite song collection had their second meeting in mid-February, and they’ve decided it’s time to let some baggage go by dropping the word “hymnal” from the song collection. Herald Press is projected to publish the collection in 2020 for Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada to replace “Hymnal: A Worship Book” (1992), “Sing the Journey” (2005) and “Sing the Story” (2007). However, in an attempt to include the increasingly diverse Mennonite church, this project will not be called a “hymnal” as has traditionally been the practice. Since hymnals are an integral part of the...

By Sadie Gustafson-Zook • April 6, 2017 • Features

Debra Detwiler Brubaker, director of Goshen College’s Women’s World Music Choir, believes that women have a special capacity for instigating change. “We know what’s right,” said Detwiler Brubaker. “We will come up against the power that is causing this wrong to happen, and we will do what is right. That’s the way to disrupt something. And I just think women inherently know that.” Women’s role in creating, sustaining and disrupting culture was the main focus during the Women’s World Music Choir’s performance on Tuesday afternoon at the Afternoon Sabbatical presentation in Sauder Concert Hall. Detwiler Brubaker led the choir in...

By Sadie Gustafson-Zook • April 6, 2017 • Arts

On April 9, the Goshen College Symphony Orchestra will present their annual spring concert. This year, Jose Rocha, in his second year as the associate professor of music and orchestra conductor, is bringing cultures from around the world to Goshen, through the concert’s theme of dance. “I wanted to show the uniqueness of each of the places that we are presenting in the concert,” says Rocha, “but also the commonalities and how the music brings all cultures closer together.” The energetic and upbeat pieces for this concert are inspired by folk dances from countries around the globe, including Cuba, Norway,...

By Ellen Conrad • April 6, 2017 • Arts

Ignition Music Garage, your one-stop shop for classic vinyl. The product of a teenager of the 70s, it houses some of the best music of the past half century, with genres that can fit anyone’s taste of music. The inside is spacious and free, with CDs, vinyl and different pieces of listening equipment lining the walls. The ceiling is high, and it really does feel like a great space for live performances. Tucked in the back-left corner underneath a small second-floor landing was where I found Steve Martin. Two nice leather chairs and a coffee table: it was a comfortable...

By Josh Stoltzfus • March 30, 2017 • Features

Imagine entering a room filled with just one instrument, an instrument large enough to take up the majority of the space, an instrument that can be played by not just one person, but many, an instrument that brings people together and sparks community. That’s exactly the type of experience a gamelan can produce. Thanks to Duane Gingerich, a GC alum, the Goshen community will soon benefit from having a gamelan of their own. The gamelan, which comes from Indonesia, is in and of itself an orchestra. It consists of several different types of gongs and various sets of tuned metal...

By Maddie Birky • March 23, 2017 • News

Since the end of January, vocal students have been hard at work preparing scenes from eight different musicals and operas. All that hard work will come together tomorrow, Friday the 17th at 7 p.m. on the stage of Reith Recital Hall in the Music Center. Every few years, the music and theater departments team up to produce a full-fledged musical, but this year, as in other years, the music department is producing selections from many different musicals. According to Professor Debra Detweiler Brubaker, the opera scenes allow students to engage with the music in a different way through movement and...

By Andrew Pauls • March 16, 2017 • Arts

Goshen College Hymn Club loves to sing, and they are inviting everyone to join them as they sing through a hymnal in a hymn marathon. Hymn Club, along with a number of local churches and other groups from the community, will be singing through the entirety of “Hymnal, A Worship Book,” more commonly known as the blue hymnal. Hymn Club is partnering up with area churches and organizations that will provide song leaders, instrumentalists and snacks. “We wanted to do another hymn sing through the whole hymnal because it is important to us that Hymn Club isn’t just a fun...

By Elsa Lantz • March 9, 2017 • News

“Everyone circle around the room,” instructed Debra Detwiler Brubaker to her Women’s World Music Choir, not impressed with their tired, mid-semester sound. The choir members pushed their chairs into the center of the spacious room. “Get into a low squat. Lower! Good.” “Now, we’re going to sing from our ovaries.” The choir sunk down into a low squat, with their hands almost touching the ground. Uncomfortable giggles circled the room, but Detwiler Brubaker stayed serious. “Now, sing,” she said, “You have the power to create. You are the beginning of the next generation. Open up and sing with this power...

By Maggie Weaver • March 9, 2017 • Features

As we find ourselves approaching spring break and thinking of warm weather, 45 Goshen College students are gearing up to head north. The Women’s World Music Choir will be on tour in Ontario, Canada, in just a few days. Although not many people consider February the most logical time to visit Canada, choir director Debra Brubaker said that now seemed like a good time to go north. Lydia Dyck, a first-year from Ontario, said that she thinks it will be special for the choir to give a taste of world music to some of the more secluded areas of Ontario,...

By Roxy Gehring • February 23, 2017 • Arts

This Friday at Ignition Music Garage, five Goshen College musicians will be telling a story about love and its various stages through the mediums of jazz, funk, R&B, folk and pop. The performers, Maggie Weaver, Sadie Gustafson-Zook, Jacob Penner, Galed Krisjayanta and Andrew Pauls, seniors, fondly named their show ‘Funk, Love, and Other Delights’. Sonny Carreño will be accompanying the students on drums. The story of this show is a love story in and of itself, a union of two love stories: Weaver’s love of music and Steve Martin’s, owner of Ignition Garage, love of music. Weaver had wanted to...

By Irina Gladun • February 16, 2017 • Arts

Many people will likely recognize Ladysmith Black Mambazo from their prominent role on Paul Simon’s Grammy-winning album Graceland, but their accomplishments are much broader than a single cameo. The group boasts over 50 albums in addition to 14 Grammy nominations and three Grammy awards. Ladysmith Black Mambazo was founded in the early 1960s by a man named Joseph Shabalala, a factory worker from Ladysmith, South Africa. The group sings in the isicathamiya tradition of a cappella music and began when black mine workers in South Africa sang together as a way to recuperate after six days of grueling labor underground....

By Andrew Pauls • February 9, 2017 • Arts

It’s difficult to feel like you’re making a difference these days. In this time of political strife, with our country banning other countries from entering, how can you feel like you’re creating change when those up on Capitol Hill refuse to listen? Sing. That is what Galed Krisjayanta is doing. “Music is a powerful tool,” the senior Hesston transfer said. He realized this when he spent a summer traveling around Indonesia, the land of his birth, performing and singing at refugee camps after an earthquake ravaged Yogyakarta in 2006. While he was travelling and performing, he was also promoting his...

By Josh Stoltzfus • February 2, 2017 • Features