Practice | RiverChor

Rehearsal Schedule for Spring 2025
Mondays, 7-9pm January -April 21, in the Great Hall at 1st Presbyterian Church. (Requiem only people may join us for winter rehearsals, or begin March 17)
Saturday, March 15, 9-11am, at Zion Lutheran Church for final rehearsal.
Sunday, March 16, Call time is 1:00 pm, Concert is at 2:00 pm at Zion

Tips for practicing Choral Music on your own: https://doreenfryling.org/2015/09/15/practicing-choral-music-ten-ideas-for-the-singer-who-doesnt-think-they-can-practice-on-their-own/

Click the links below to go to the YouTube Video for the song. Sometimes there are ads, if it really bothers you, there are numerous adblocking plugins for desktop, and browser apps for mobile.

The Spring 2025 YouTube playlist is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBkr7JF1ur4&list=PLpneJsRvychQ4m3dDDgHYBNzDjHtfDs_7

You can change the speed on YouTube videos and it does not change the pitch. Click the Gear icon on the video, select speed, and you can pull it down to 75% or 50% to work out tricky bits.

Requiem – W. A. Mozart (1756-1791)

For the sake of making this page a little shorter, all the practice tracks for Requiem are on this page: https://riverchor.org/mozart-practice-tracks/

Cry Out and Shout – Knut Nystedt (1915-2014)
Knut Nystedt was a Norwegian composer, organist, and teacher. He championed contemporary choral music throughout his career. This is one of his most well known (and accessible) works and promises to be a dynamite opener.

All Parts:

Down To the River to Pray – arr. Mack Wilberg (b. 1955)
Mack Wilberg, a native of Utah, began his career as a professor of music at Brigham Young University and served there form 1984 to 199. He was the associate director of the Tabernacle Choir from 1999 until his appointment as the Choir’s director in 2008. He is widely known for his many choral arrangements, both of sacred works and American folk music. Down to the River to Pray has been described as a Christian folk hymn, an African -American spiritual, an Appalachian song, and a Southern gospel song. The exact origin of the song is unknown although the earliest known version of the song was published in “Slave Songs of the United States in 1867. It could very well have been associated with the underground railroad.

Down To The River To Pray
S1 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1elxTTxrWSOmfr7lEZiOietLjtY045g3V/view?usp=sharing
S2 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OZ6JhJor19cv2kH3cL1VZZ9_NQLLJIAX/view?usp=sharing
A1 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b1rRC-7lFXVUxQy64F6SlRrE3TdbH3Lb/view?usp=sharing
A2 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b7miFolJsymt7sAQg-rJ9_MM1R8K9Wza/view?usp=sharing
T1 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XpcLkeAC7O76_t21cTSzmIfZ-Uel8H5D/view?usp=sharing
T2 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t4OJ7b-n4BTKmtqahEKPVxyxwgx-dW89/view?usp=sharing
Bar – https://drive.google.com/file/d/16li1U9lzZMJ1FJC2hNdQ0jtwzg28E2Bg/view?usp=sharing
Bass – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_rfrb-VL9JgkHvTlr_XLAh26Mgl__-jN/view?usp=sharing

Old West Medley – arr. Mark Hayes (b. 1953)
Mark Hayes is an internationally recognized pianist and composer. He currently lives in Kansas City, MO and has hundreds of published works. He is especially known for his worship & praise music and his arrangements of American folk songs. This medley features a number of familiar western tunes.

Prayer – Lloyd Pfautsch (1921-2003)
Lloyd Pfautsch served on the faculty at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX from 1958 until his retirement in 1992. He held a B.S. in Theology and Master of Sacred Music degrees from Union Theological Seminary in New York. He has over 300 published editions with 15 publishers. Prayer is his setting of a text written by Swedish economist and diplomat Dag Hammarskjold who served as the second Secretary-General of
the United Nations. It was included in his only book, “Markings,” which is a collection of his diary reflections from 1925 until his death in 1961. Markings gives insight into Hammarskjold’s spiritual struggle and subsequent formation of his personal faith.

Prayer
SA in LEFT Channel and TB in RIGHT Channel
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pVXmpnZMLobNFtZLWd6hXHlnbIGAF9rm/view?usp=sharing

Children Will Listen -Stephen Sondheim (1930-2021), arr. Mark Brymer (b. 1957)
This is one of the more popular songs from the Broadway musical “Into the Woods” and serves as a cautionarytale. Mark Brymer currently lives in Dallas, TX. He is a prolific composer/arranger in a variety of genres. He also heads WOW! ENTERTAINMENT, INC. which has collaborated with Six Flags Theme Parks, Carnival Cruise Lines, Disney, and a host of other entertainment entities.

All Parts:

Ye Followers of the Lamb – Edwin Earle Ferguson (1910-1999)
This setting of a Shaker song provides a musical glimpse into the worship style of this millenarian restorationist Christian sect founded in England in 1747 and later established in the United States in the 1780’s. Their worship practice incorporated both singing and dance which would escalate to such a frenzy that participants would shout and convulse. Edwin Earle Ferguson, a native of North Dakota, studied at Drake University receiving a Bachelor of Science in Education in 1931 and a Bachelor of Law in 1934. He received a Doctor of Juridical Science from Yale in 1937. He also served as Director of Music at Chevy Chase (MD) United Methodist Church from 1965 -1985. In 1972 re retired from law practice and worked as a professional musician.

Ye Followers of the Lamb
S1 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/15vJxpKHGIw0q3stE7sN4V8qDe8v-n9Re/view?usp=sharing
S2 – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a7iKaGZ5-zJJa837wPrAGolAjhb7TkFM/view?usp=sharing
A – https://drive.google.com/file/d/15YQfJjyK2ogiJG7nK62HOrf9QgA95BxP/view?usp=sharing
T – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Qzi9-ftZvZHNmAe_PjN6QTQr6jmSP3bo/view?usp=sharing
Bass – https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CiI2ol5FTQxNRUq2q2Wy2zqqMgHNm4Sl/view?usp=sharing