LEWISTON, Idaho – The Lewis-Clark State College Concert Choir will present an evening of “Sounds on Scotland” on April 25 at 7:30 p.m. at the college’s Silverthorne Theatre. The event is free and open to the public.
The concert will feature bagpiper Reid Wilson and special guest The Pioneer Ramblers, a local acoustic band that plays Celtic and older tunes. The concert will celebrate music, poetry, and culture through music from and about Scotland.
The Pioneer Ramblers are led by Tony Kuphaldt on the vibraphone. Kuphaldt is an LC State instructor-on-loan from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories and teaches industrial electronics at the college’s Schweitzer Career & Technical Education Center. Also in the band are Val Kuphaldt on violin, Daniel Green on bass, Barbara Lee Jordan on dulcimer, and Rita McAdoo on violin and viola. McAdoo teaches strings at LC State.
Sets by The Pioneer Ramblers will feature various Scottish tunes, including the traditional “Arran Boat Song” and “Atholl Highlanders,” as well as “Neil Gow’s Lament for His Second Wife.” They also will play contemporary Scottish songs, such as Stuart Morison’s “Maggie’s Pancakes.”
The LC State choir will perform several Scottish folksongs, including “Auld Lang Syne,” and “O Whistle and I’ll Come to Ye,” as well as a medley of traditional Scottish songs. They will also sing some music with text by Scottish poet, Robert Burns, including “Banks of Doon” by Donna Gartman Schultz, that will feature Timauri Stearns on the violin.
The concert also will feature the world premiere of “A Scottish Folk Song Mass” written by Sarah Graham, LC State’s associate professor of music and conductor of the choir. The melody of each of the five mass movements, sung in English, are inspired by traditional Scottish folksongs “Ae Fond Kiss,” “Joy of My Heart,” “Griogal Cridhe,” “Skye Boat Song,” and “Loch Lomond,” and are bookended by “Highland Cathedral” and “Scotland, the Brave” on bagpipes.
Drawings for Scotland-related door prizes will take place throughout the concert. The evening will end with an invitation for the audience to join in and sing with combined groups on “The Parting Glass.”
For more information on the concert, contract Graham at sjgraham@lcsc.edu.