Last weekend in Christ Chapel, the Hillsdale College Choir and Chamber Choirs performed “America Sings!” conducted by Director of Choirs Bradley Holmes in honor of America’s 250th birthday. 

The performance opened with the theme “Preachers and Patriots,” a collection of four hymns and spiritual songs. The first was “Let the Tyrants Shake Their Iron Rod” by William Billings, written during the Revolutionary War. 

“Circuit riders traversed the countryside, carrying not only Bibles but oblong hymnals that contained hymns like the first one that was saved by William Billings, who’s considered America’s first composer,” Holmes said.

The next section was on “Poets and Pianos.” It contained poetry by Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, James Agee, and Ogden Nash set to the piano. 

Holmes said his vision was to mix the rustic songs of the first American composers with the cultivated arts of Mozart.

Graduate student Isabella Zink said she enjoyed listening to others singing and the piano accompaniment, especially in “Choose Something Like a Star” by Frost. 

“I noticed this time as we got to the end of the Frost, the ‘O star’ motif, that octave jump that you hear from the choirs initially and it’s so delicate, was going on in the piano as they were doing those very very low notes with the choir. But that motif was still there. It was lovely,” Zink said.

She said another of her favorite pieces was Dickinson’s “The Moon is Distant from the Sea.” 

“It sounded exactly like what Dickinson poetry as a song should be,” Zink said. “There’s an element of the haunting. There’s an element of seeking. There’s constant motion in the piano; you’ve got this beautiful interplay between the choirs.”

Junior Ava Carlson said the choir wearily convened at the end of a long week to practice three of Nash’s “Animal Cracker” poems, but sight-reading them changed the room’s energy.

“We were laughing so hard we could barely sing,” Carlson said. 

By the end of the first run through, Carlson said the choirs were all energized again and ready to keep singing.

At the opening of “The Panther” by Nash, the College Choir tiptoed to their places and spooked at the jolting piano cord. They hid behind their music binders and looked around fearfully. 

“‘The Panther’ has been so fun because the audience always gets jumpscared by it, because it comes after a calming, beautiful piece of music, and then it’s just like BAM, the panther,” Carlson said. 

If the audience’s initial reaction was surprise, it was soon changed to laughter as the choir repeatedly sang “Moo” before singing, “The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other milk.” 

A collection of folk and old spirituals titled “People and Places” followed. 

The Chamber Choir tenors and basses began singing “Down to the River to Pray” while mounting the stage. With the verse “O sisters, let’s go down,” the altos and sopranos approached from the center aisle. The choir was not only singing; it was performing. 

“Holmes wants to delight the audience through having our singing be quality, but also having our bodies be alive and smiling, and making it a performance,” sophomore Nolan McCue said. 

“Variation on Simple Gifts (from Appalachian Spring)” featured a trio: sophomore Anastasia Dementyev and juniors Carlson and Evelyn Gray. “Ain’t-a That Good News” got the choir binders bobbing in the jazzy rhythm; Holmes looked like he was nearly dancing. 

The final section of the concert was called “Pride and Providence” and featured the song, “My Country Tis of Thee,” performed by both choirs.

After the performance, sophomore and soprano Ali Teeter said she was proud of the choirs.

“This is just an epic set that we just did,” Teeter said. “All of us are super excited about how it came together. How they all wove into one another was really what made it more than the sum of its parts.”

She encouraged other students to get involved in choir and participate in the arts on campus.

“The previous director said to come down on Tuesdays and Thursdays and lubricate your soul with song,” Teeter said. “I like that idea. You’re gonna get rusty over time if you’re just working on your schoolwork. But you need art to really remember what it’s all about.”