San Juan Singers Choral Concert is Swan Song for RuthE. Wells

San Juan Singers are preparing a concert of lush and rapturous choral music on Saturday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday, April 22 at 5:00 pm.

Directed by RuthE. Wells, the 37-voice mixed chorus will perform lullabies, love songs and music from requiems, inspired by the Gawthrop anthem “Sing Me to Heaven.”  Drawing from all musical styles and periods, you’ll hear works as familiar as the Brahms lullaby, “Isn’t It Romantic?” and “Ave Maria,” and as diverse as “The Lullaby of Broadway,” “The Twelve Days After Christmas” and “Loch Lomand.”

If you would comfort me, sing me a lullaby.  If you would win my heart, sing me a love song.

If you would mourn me and bring me to God, Sing me a requiem.  Sing me to heaven!

“It isn’t all terribly serious,” Wells explains.  “I’ve had some fun with the program selections; I always do.  What is serious is the genuine choral experience of this concert.  Composers of every era have written wonderful and inspiring things for mixed-voice choruses, and this is a rare chance in the year to hear the rich full harmonies of Henry Purcell, Felix Mendelssohn, Giuseppe Verdi, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Randall Thompson and Morten Lauridsen together.  You don’t have to be a music history student to appreciate the fact from an audience standpoint that these people set eloquent texts to beautiful music.”

In addition to the full chorus works, there will be solo and ensemble performances by RuthE., Corinne Stevens, Denise King, Bert Dayton, Ed Wilson and many others.

These concerts will be the last with Wells as their director.  At the end of May she will be returning to the San Francisco Bay Area to resume a career in executive support, “and to sing more” she said.  “The island has given me a wealth of opportunities to grow as a performing artist; I’m very grateful.  But the more I did in music direction, the fewer opportunities I had as a singer, and I need to sing.

“I fully expect the San Juan Singers to continue,” she said.  “It is up to them what they want to do next and to choose who will lead them.”