Sunday, April 12, 2026 | 3:00 pm
Camp Concert Hall
Modlin Center for the Arts

Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941)

I Will Sing of Life

Nora Veigas, soprano

James E. Green (b. 1970)

Morning Song

Amazing Grace singers: Julie Auten, Chloe Fortune, Marianne Packer, Nora Veigas

Katharne Tibbets, recorder

Joel Kumro and Brent te Velde, percussion

William Billings (1746-1800)

Arr. Sarah Rimkus (b. 1990)

Africa 

Chloe Fortune, soprano

Marianne Packer, alto

Pablo Talamente, tenor

Zach Ruighaver, baritone

Jaimon Chaney, bass

Morten Lauridsen (b. 1943)

Sure on this Shining Night

Andrea Clearfield (b. 1960)

Poet of the Body and the Soul

Spiritual

Arr. Undine Smith Moore (1904 - 1989)

Daniel, Daniel, Servant of the Lord

Ash York, tenor

Collin Holt, bass

Traditional

Arr. James Erb (1926 - 2014)

Shenandoah

Melissa Dunphy (b. 1980)

Sailing Away

Josiah K. Allwood (1828 - 1909)

Arr. Shawn Kirchner (b. 1970)

Unclouded Day 

I Will Sing of Life

Sing! I will sing!

If none will sing of life,

Then I will sing its praise.

Not in the treble voice of youth,

Not on instruments of one string,

Not by happy sounding brasses,

Nor by cadence sounding on drums

would I praise life as those who sing hymns

only to the sun

Forgetting nature in torment

Man in agony

I would sing soft and sad,

surging with emotion, remembering pain,

fear and death.

The swamping morass and seed beds too where courage and life began to bloom,

And man in sweat quivered at what he saw,

and man spoke

in verse and ballade and epic, recounting glory,

learning self.

Hailing life, as the deep surge to be.

If none will sing of life then I will sing its praise,

singing with deep voice the hymn that extols

restless beings tense with destiny.

If none will sing of life then I will sing its praise.

-Rev. Arthur Graham

Morning Song

Wen de ya ho

Wen de ya,

Wen de ya,

ho ho ho ho 

he ya ho, ya ya ya

I am of the Great Spirit, it is so

I am of the Great Spirit

I am of the Great Spirit

It is so

-Teehahnahmah chant

u ne la nv i u we tsi

i ga go yv he i

hna quo tso sv wi yu lo se

i ga gu yv ho nv

God’s Son

paid for us.

Then to heaven he went

After paying for us.

-Cherokee “Amazing Grace”

Africa

Now shall my inward joys arise,

And burst into a song;

Almighty love inspires my heart,

And pleasure tunes my tongue.

God on his thirsty Sion hill

Some mercy-drops has thrown,

And solemn oaths have bound his love

To show'r salvation down.

Why do we then indulge our fears,

Suspicions, and complaints?

Is he a God, and shall his grace

Grow weary of his saints?

-Isaac Watts

Sure on this Shining Night

Sure on this shining night

Of star made shadows round,

Kindness must watch for me

This side the ground.

The late year lies down the north.

All is healed, all is health.

High summer holds the earth.

Hearts all whole.

Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand'ring far

alone

Of shadows on the stars.

-James Agee

Poet of the Body and the Soul

I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,

The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,

The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.

I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,

And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,

And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.

I chant the chant of dilation or pride,

We have had ducking and deprecating about enough,

I show that size is only development.

I am he that walks with the tender and growing night,

I call to the earth and sea half-held by the night.

Press close bare-bosom’d night—press close magnetic nourishing night!

Night of south winds—night of the large few stars!

Still nodding night—mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath’d earth!

Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

Earth of departed sunset—earth of the mountains misty-topt!

Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!

Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!

Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!

Far-swooping elbow’d earth—rich apple-blossom’d earth!

Smile, for your lover comes.

Prodigal, you have given me love—therefore I to you give love!

O unspeakable passionate love.

-Walt Whitman

Daniel, Daniel, Servant of the Lord

Oh, the king cried, “Oh! Daniel, Daniel! A-that-a Hebrew Daniel, servant of the Lord!”

Among the Hebrew nation, one Hebrew Daniel was found.

They put him in a-the lion’s den. He stayed there all night long.

Now the king in his sleep was troubled, and early in the morning he rose,

to find God had sent a-his angel down to lock the lion’s jaws!

-African-American Spiritual

Shenandoah

Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you

And hear your rolling river

Oh, Shenandoah, I long to see you

way, we're bound away

Across the wide Missouri.

I long to see your smiling valley

And hear your rolling river

I long to see your smiling valley

way, we're bound away

Across the wide Missouri.

'Tis seven long years since last I've seen you

And hear your rolling river

'Tis seven long years since last I've seen you

way, we're bound away

Across the wide Missouri.

-Traditional

Sailing Away

Thy sails are set on the unseen sea,

Sailing away, sailing,

The wave are bearing thee far from me,

Love stands wailing:

Pale mists slowly rise between,

Mists of parting tears, I ween,

Wrapping thee in shadow sheen,

Thy face veiling.

What is this that is borne to me,

Sailing away, sailing?

“Thou’lt meet again, on the unseen sea;

Cease thy wailing:

Out where the waves of Time, shall be

Met by the waves of Eternity,

Light shall pierce the mists for thee

All unveiling.”

-Isabel Grimes Richey

Unclouded Day

O, they tell me of a home far beyond the skies,

O they tell me of a home far away;

O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise,

O they tell me of an unclouded day.

Refrain:

O the land of cloudless days,

O the land of an unclouded sky,

O they tell me of a home where no storm clouds rise;

O they tell me of an unclouded day.

O they tell me of a home where my friends have gone,

O they tell me of that land far away,

where the Tree of Life in eternal bloom

sheds its fragrance through the unclouded day. [Refrain]

O they tell me of a King in His beauty there,

and they tell me that my eyes shall behold

where He sits on the throne that is bright as the sun,

in the city that is made of gold. [Refrain]

-J.K. Alwood

Soprano

Sadie Abramson

Grace Aleksiewicz

Julie Auten

Sarah Deverna

Chloe Fortune

Sophie Guarrera

Jessica Lam

Grace Pawlewicz

Nora Veigas

Alto

Sydney Hass

Hien Anh Ho

Audrey Hosford

Jessica Khan

Marianne Packer

Iris Pham

Augusta Smith

Claire Snelling

Piper Turri

Tenor

Joel Kumro*

Katherine McCrary

Pablo Talamante**

Aaron Todd*

Ash York

Bass

Jaimon Chaney

Collin Holt

Zion Kim

Seth O’Donnell

DeeSean Palmer

Zack Ruighaver

* Community musician

** University of Richmond faculty

Dr. Ryan Tibbets, conductor

Ryan Tibbetts is Director of Music at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Goochland and Artistic Director of the Central Virginia Masterworks Chorale and Richmond Concert Chorale, and in recent years, he has directed choirs and taught at Hampden-Sydney College and Randolph-Macon College. He also plays harpsichord with RVA Baroque and is active as a vocal soloist and choral singer. Prior to moving to Richmond, Dr. Tibbetts served as Assistant Conductor of Mendelssohn Chorus of Philadelphia, Assistant Conductor of the Newark Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Newark Symphony Chorus, and served as adjunct faculty at The College of New Jersey, where he directed two choirs and taught undergraduate choral conducting. He received the Doctor of Music in Choral Conducting from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, MM in Choral Conducting from the University of Delaware, and BA in Music with a Performance Certificate in Conducting from Princeton University, and holds a Colleague Certification from the American Guild of Organists. His primary conducting teachers were Nicole Aldrich, William Jon Gray, Paul Head, Brian Stone, Carmen Tellez, and Richard Tang Yuk.

Dr. Brent te Velde, accompanist

A native of Stillwater, Oklahoma, Brent te Velde earned his undergraduate degree from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, with a double major in German literature and organ. As part of his undergraduate studies he spent a semester in Bremen, Germany, studying at both the University of Bremen and the Bremen Musikhochschule. He then earned his masters degree and an additional certificate in sacred music from Yale University, and completed graduate studies with doctoral work in organ, sacred music, and music theory at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. His doctoral final project examined J.S. Bach’s early autodidactic study of fugal composition with a focus on Bach’s fugues borrowing Italian fugue subjects. A fifth generation organist, Brent began organ studies with his mother, the organist and composer Rebecca Groom te Velde. His primary organ teachers thereafter were Christopher Young, Bruce Neswick, Martin Jean, Jeffrey Brillhart, David Heller, Christoph Grohmann, and Hans Davidsson. He earned first prizes in the John R. Rodland Memorial Competition, the AGO Regional Young Organists competition, and the William Hall competition in San Antonio, and has performed for both regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists. His playing has also been featured on the public radio program Pipedreams.

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