Campus Connection

Choral Director Gary Walth to direct Concert Choir, others at choral festival

Singers of Professor Gary Walth, long-time director of choral studies at UWL, will soon take his cues at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Walth has finally accepted a director residency for a summer national festival chorus at the famed concert hall. Walth will be joined by 40 current singers of his Concert Choir, more than 35 alumni from former choral groups, along with musicians from five other collegiate and high school choral ensembles from throughout the country. They’ll join him at the 18th National Festival Chorus in Carnegie Hall June 24. Walth will direct the mass choir and orchestra as they perform six pieces, ranging from Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna” from “Carmina Burana,” to James Erb’s arrangement of “Shenandoah.” While it’s a first time for Walth directing at Carnegie (he has sung there as part of choral groups a few times), it will be his last as a UWL conductor. “If there’s a way to go out, this is it,” says Walth who is retiring at the end of the spring semester following 24 years as the university’s director of choral music studies. Walth says he’s been asked many times to conduct at Carnegie, but wanted to wait until he had extra time — which he will have after retiring. A published choral composer and arranger who has written two popular collections of choral warm-ups, Walth plans to continue to write — music and books. He is currently completing his first book, “There’s no I in Choral Ensemble: What we can learn from coaches and athletes and what we can teach them.” Walth is an in-demand guest conductor, clinician and adjudicator in several choral genres. He continues to accept composition commissions from schools and churches. Walth has been a clinician at the popular Onalaska Classic Concert Choir Competition each January since its inception more than 20 years ago. He and his wife, Cathy, live in Onalaska. Their daughter Therese is a professional actor while daughter Christine is an elementary teacher in Bloomington, Minnesota. UWL Choral Union sets spring performance; auditions set UWL’s university/community chorus, Choral Union, will be performing German composer Carl Orff’s popular cantata, “Carmina Burana,” at its final concert of the spring semester. The choir’s first rehearsal will be at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 30, in 58 Center for the Arts. Choral Union members from the past five semesters are asked to purchase “Carmina Burana” scores from Leithold Music Co., 116 4th St. S., in downtown La Crosse, before the first rehearsal. New singers hoping to join the choir should attend the first rehearsal and be prepared to sing a brief sight-reading exercise after the rehearsal. The final concert is scheduled for the evening of Sunday, May 14, at a yet-to-be-determined location. For more information on Choral Union, contact director, UWL Professor Gary Walth, at gwalth@uwlax.edu or 608.317.8764.