Election Eve Concert Celebrates 'We the People'

COLUMBIA, Ky. -- The Lindsey Wilson College Choral program will give a special concert Monday night to celebrate area residents' civic duty.

"An Election Eve Concert: We the People" will be performed 7 p.m. CT Monday, Nov. 5, at Columbia Baptist Church, 201 Greensburg St.

The program will include performances by the Lindsey Wilson Concert Choir and the Lindsey Wilson College Singers with an accompaniment by the Commonwealth Musicians of Louisville, Ky.

Words of Lincoln will be the concert's featured work. The work chronicles five of Lincoln's well-known speeches: a Feb. 11, 1861, speech at the train station in Springfield, Ill., as he left to assume the presidency; his first inaugural speech; the Emancipation Proclamation; The Gettysburg Address; and his second inaugural speech.

The Nov. 5 program will also feature music by Stephen Foster as well as poetry of Robert Frost set to music.

The quadrennial election eve concert has become a tradition for the LWC choral program.

"This is something we enjoy to offer to our campus and community," said LWC Director of Choral Programs Gerald Chafin. "It's an interesting slice of Americana as prelude to the presidential election."

Chafin said he is excited that this election eve concert will also include members of the Commonwealth Musicians.

"We are delighted to include this concert in our collaboration with the Commonwealth Musicians, an ensemble that we have partnered with since 1999," Chafin said. "This joint effort resulted in our participation in the 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial where we gave the world premiere of Words of Lincoln."

Chafin noted that 15 of the students who will perform in the election eve concert will also perform July 4, 2013, at the American Cemetery near Normandy, France.

"These students will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony, which is very similar to what we see presidents do on Memorial Day in the United States at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," Chafin said.

The Lindsey Wilson choral program will perform "An Election Even Concert: We the People" at at 7 p.m. CT Monday, Nov. 5, at Columbia Baptist Church, 201 Greensburg St. For more information, contact Gerald Chafin at ChafinG@lindsey.edu or (270) 384-8084.

Watch It Live ...
If you can't make it to Columbia Baptist Church, you can watch it live on Campus Central. It will also be archived. To watch it live, click here.