Heinz Choir sings its way overseas

A weekend-long alumni celebration will honor the event and will conclude with the annual… A weekend-long alumni celebration will honor the event and will conclude with the annual spring concert on Sunday at 3 p.m. in Heinz Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.

After the students finish their finals, the group will take a 16-hour flight to China for its triennial tour, where the choir will perform four concerts all over the country in a two-week span.

The program that director John Goldsmith assembled features seven different languages (including Mandarin Chinese) and three songs without real words. As per tradition, the choir will also send off its seniors by singing ‘Brother James’s Air.’

‘To honor our alumni, we will invite them to sing that song with us to give our seniors the proper send-off,’ said Goldsmith.

The choir currently has more than 1,000 alumni scattered around the world, hundreds of whom will return to Oakland this weekend for a reunion on Friday and a sing-a-long on Saturday.

Goldsmith has directed the choir since 1989, and he directed the 60th anniversary as well. He knows the tradition of the choir and is honored to be hosting the alumni.

‘I’m just proud,’ he said. ‘The alumni are really pleased with the way the choir has been singing.’

Goldsmith doesn’t feel any added pressure directing this event for all the notable alumni. He doesn’t believe the choir does, either.

‘They’re probably more nervous because their family’s there than performing in front of the alumni,’ he said.

Senior Josh Green, who sings bass II for the choir, agreed and said he tries to approach every concert the same way by ‘just trying to be really good.’ But he admitted that this year might be different because he has a solo in ‘Zoriu Byut,’ which is sung in Russian.

Samantha Meese is the president of the choir. She went on the 2006 tour to South America. The group spent 18 days exploring Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. It performed with several South American choirs.

‘We got to perform in some breathtaking venues,’ she said. ‘The trip to China is viewed a bit differently than our tour to South America because of the language barrier.’

She said that a few students knew Spanish and Portuguese on the 2006 tour. Nobody in this year’s group is fluent in Mandarin.

Green also went on the 2006 tour. He said Buenos Aries was one of the most exciting cities he’s ever been to, but the final stop of the tour was the most fun.

‘We ended in Rio de Janeiro, and you can imagine the kind of fun we had on the beaches of Ipanema,’ said Green. ‘That’s a place where people party from 10 p.m. until 6 a.m.’

For the 2009 tour, in addition to performing in Beijing, Xian, Hangzhou, and Shanghai, the group will also visit Suzhou and Hong Kong.

‘Our itinerary is completely booked every day,’ said Meese. ‘It seems like it’s going to be a non-stop trip.’

Goldsmith said he always has the choir perform at least one song in the native language of the country they are visiting. But this year, for the first time, he had a Chinese grad student coach the choir on the dictation of ‘Fengyang Song,’ which will be performed this Sunday and on the tour.

‘We always get standing ovations,’ he said. ‘The foreign audiences are extremely receptive.’

This isn’t the first time Goldsmith tried to go to China, though. In 2003, the trip was booked, but the SARS epidemic foiled the choir’s plans. Miraculously, travel agency Kingsway International rerouted the tour to Scandinavia on 30 days notice. Goldsmith was so grateful that he still uses its services.

Green doesn’t know any Mandarin other than ‘Fengyang Song,’ but he is still looking forward to the trip.

Now that he is older, he views this tour differently than his first one.

‘There’s thousands of years of culture there that is so vastly different than ours,’ he said.

During his first tour, Green was more excited about the fact that he just finished up his freshman year and was going to countries where he could get into bars. But he’s more excited for the sightseeing than the partying this time around.

‘The Great Wall of China is one of those things you’ll probably only see once in your lifetime,’ he said. ‘You can see the inside of a bar plenty of times.’

This Sunday, Green and the rest of the seniors will perform in Heinz Chapel for the final time.

All of the chapel’s history and architectural beauty will surround them as they perform 16 songs from all around the world.

Goldsmith said that anybody who has never been inside the Chapel will be in awe, especially during the concert.

‘It’s an inspiring place,’ he said.