The UW-Platteville Baraboo Sauk County Campus and Community Choir will give its first public performance since 2019, as a benefit concert for Ukrainian humanitarian relief at the First Congregational United Church of Christ in Baraboo, on Tuesday, May 10 at 7 p.m. No tickets are required, and a free will offering will be taken with funds going to the Sunflower of Peace Foundation, whose current mission is to help people of Ukraine affected by the Russian military invasion.
“The music will touch on themes of struggle, love, respect, loss and peace,” according to Deanna Horjus-Lang, the choir’s director. “I chose this music initially to capture the emotions of moving out of the pandemic, and all the compassion and healing and hope these years have brought out.”
But then, Horjus-Lang says, as the choir was working on the concert and the invasion of Ukraine continued, the selections took on even more emotion and felt even more necessary to present in a concert of connection and beauty, linked to a real effort to help.
The 12 selections in the concert include texts from Maya Angelou, Rumi and Mark Twain, among many others, in choral settings either a cappella or with piano accompaniment. Horjus-Lang says she wanted the words to really stand out in these performances.
“These texts have so much power and feeling and have really connected with the choir,” she said. “We want the audience to feel that power and compassion too.”