The TCS will be on hiatus for the summer of 2024. Rehearsals will resume in early September, 2024, exact date TBA. Stay tuned! In the meantime, visit us on Facebook for recent pictures and videos.

Spring 2024 Concert:

“Finding Peace in Anxious Times“

Thursday, May 2, 2024, 7:30pm

The Paul Porter Center for the Performing Arts, Brevard College

1 Brevard College Dr, Brevard, NC 28712

Tickets $20, available at the door or online: click on upper toolbar link to purchase tickets online.

Spring 2024 rehearsals begin on Tuesday, January 23, 2024. 7:00 pm, Porter Center stage.

Interested in joining us? Come to one of our first three rehearsals to sit in with us.

Local high school and college singers are welcome to participate with the TCS. There are no dues payments required for students.

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Christmas Concert

December 14, 2023

The Transylvania Choral Society and Brevard College Chamber Singers with be performing Benjamin Britten’s “A Ceremony of Carols,” composed in 1942 at the height of the Second World War. The combined choruses will also present selections from Conrad Susa’s “Carols and Lullabies” as well as his invigorating arrangement of the traditional Catalan carol, “Fum, Fum, Fum.”

7:30 pm, The Paul Porter Center, Brevard College, Brevard, North Carolina

Join the TCS for a joyous holiday concert with an International flavor!

Ticket are $15 at the door or online at transylvaniachoral.org.

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http://www.transylvaniachoral.org

Rehearsals for the Fall 2023 season will begin on Tuesday, September 5th at 7:00 on the main stage in The Porter Center at Brevard College. Come around 6:30 to register and pay your $40 dues.

*The TCS does not exclude any singer if the dues are a financial hardship. Please see any Board member to arrange for a dues reduction or waiver.

Interested in joining us? Come to one of our first three rehearsals to sit in with us.

Local high school and college singers are welcome to participate with the TCS. There are no dues payments required for students.

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Come join us on Sunday, April 23, 2023 for

“An American Spiritual Journey.”

3:00 p.m.

The Paul Porter Center for the Performing Arts. Brevard College.

Tickets $15, available at the door or online at transylvaniachoral.org

Spring rehearsals begin on Tuesday, January 24, 2023. New members welcome! No audition required.

The Transylvania Choral Society will begin spring rehearsals on Tuesday, January 24, 2023.

Location: The Porter Center, Brevard College, on the main stage.

Time: 7:00 p.m. Registration will begin at 6:30 p.m. for the first three rehearsals. Dues will be $40 to help defray the cost of music and other expenses.*

Local high school and college singers are welcome to participate with the TCS. There are no dues payments required for students.

To access the main stage rehearsal area, drive to the back of the Porter Center to the stage door area. There is a parking lot between the Porter Center and the Ingles/Verizon Store; you will see stairs and a loading dock area. Enter there.

*The TCS does not exclude any singer if the dues are a financial hardship. Please see any Board member to arrange for a dues reduction or waiver.

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Fall Rehearsal Season
Begins September 6, 2022

Updated website address: transylvaniachoral.org

The Transylvania Choral Society is thrilled to announce that have we resumed in-person rehearsals and performances for the Fall/Winter 2021 and Spring 2022 seasons—our Spring rehearsals began on March 1, 2022 in The Porter Center for the Performing Arts at Brevard College.

Rehearsals begin at 7:00 pm each Tuesday throughout the fall and spring semester. Both returning and prospective members may attend three rehearsals before making a commitment for the Fall 2022 season.

In accordance with Brevard College coronavirus protocols for guests using college facilities, all TCS singers must be fully vaccinated and provide proof of vaccination in order to rehearse. Brevard College is currently a mask-optional campus.

Starting on September 8th, 20220 we will begin preparing for two concerts—a stand-alone performance of John Rutter’s Magnificat on December 15, and a joint performance with the Brevard Philharmonic in their traditional holiday program on December 18.

Dues for members this season will be $40. As always, we appreciate the faithful support of our business partners, individual donors, and of course the singers who make up and sustain the Transylvania Choral Society!

See and hear our older performances below…

HALLELUJAH CHORUS, with
BBC PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

As a special treat for this memorable fall/winter 2020 season, the Transylvania Choral Society obtained permission from the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra to use their instrumental rendering of “Hallelujah” from Handel’s Messiah within our virtual choir performance. Singers rehearsed via Zoom and recorded themselves individually, in order for Director David Gresham and his talented collaborators to produce this rendering of our faithful and grateful ensemble.

“Hallelujah” from Messiah, George Frideric Handel

Sung by the Transylvania Choral Society,
music recorded 2009 by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra
Dr. David Gresham, choral director and editor

“GLORY TO GOD”
from MESSIAH

In the same vein as the “Hallelujah” Chorus, the Transylvania Choral Society collaborated with organist Dr. Vance Reese to perform “Glory to God,” echoing the song of the angels at the miracle of Christmas.

“Glory to God” from Messiah, George Frideric Handel

Sung by the Transylvania Choral Society,
music recorded 2020 by organist Dr. Vance Reese
Dr. David Gresham, choral director and editor

 

“WHEN MEMORY FADES”

Tech-savvy Choral Director Dr. David Gresham and stalwart accompanist Patti Black played and sang at Zoom meetings in fall 2020. Choir members at the Zoom meeting were muted, so singers could hear David and Patti and sing along at home. We saw each other but didn’t hear each other, and even our director didn’t hear us — at least not at first.

In our own time, outside the Tuesday night Zoom meeting, singers used one device (e.g. computer) to play our parts while recording our own voice tracks on another device (smart phone). When the choir was ready, we sent sound files to Dr. Gresham, who then produced a unified final project from those tracks. After Dr. Gresham piloted this successfully with the choir at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, we were pleased to present “When Memory Fades,” our first completed track of the Fall 2020 season:

“When Memory Fades,” text by Dr. Mary Louise Bringle

Performed by the Transylvania Choral Society
melody by Jayne Southwick Cool, arranged by Eric Nelson
Dr. David Gresham director, Patti Black accompanist

It sounds challenging but we believe the final product was more than worth the effort. Because this was “virtual” singing, each chorister was faced with hearing his or her own voice alone, which can make singers quite reluctant! Dr. Gresham points out: “You don’t have to feel too sheepish about how your recording turns out” because during the mixing, there’s a deal of leveling and compressing whereby quality rises and mistakes are subsumed.”

Transylvania Choral Society is a community of folks who enjoy singing, and the choir has never held auditions; its spirit is about the power of many small talents uniting to form one fine sound.

Our final result was the virtual recital combining selections from Handel’s “Messiah” with “When Memory Fades,” the hymn above composed by Dr. Mary Louise Bringle, Professor of Religious Studies at Brevard College — one of the pieces initially slated for an April 2020 Benefit Concert for the Alzheimer’s Association.

TCS has a solid core of committed members, and this season has brought together former members as well as  those near and far who welcome a new challenge to bring singing back into all our lives.

TCS proudly performs under the baton of our Artistic Director and Conductor, Dr. David Gresham, with artistic accompaniment by Patricia Black.

 

“WHEN MEMORY FADES”
Scheduled for Spring 2020

POSTPONED

ALZHEIMER’S STORIES
by ROBERT S. COHEN
and
WHEN MEMORY FADES, AND RECOGNITION FALTERS
text by MEL BRINGLE

with
SPECIAL PRESENTATION BY EDWARD SHAW, MD,
co-author of
KEEPING LOVE ALIVE AS MEMORIES FADE—THE FIVE LOVE LANGUAGES & THE ALZHEIMER’S JOURNEY 

POSTPONED

We are sorry to report that the Transylvania Choral Society and Brevard College Chamber Singers had to postpone our program for “When Memory Fades” indefinitely. Our concert was originally scheduled for Thursday, April 16, 2020, in the Paul Porter Center for the Performing Arts at Brevard College.

COMMUNITY SUPPORT

We rely on membership dues and the generosity of our sponsors, supporters, and many donors to continue offering great choral music each year in the fall and spring for the community of Transylvania County.

We are especially grateful to our 2020 season sponsors for their support of the Transylvania Choral Society.

The Transylvania Choral Society is a volunteer community choir that prepares and presents a wide array of sacred and secular choral music at least twice a year. Society members share their love of music in performances that entertain, inspire and inform.

Founded in 1975, The Transylvania Choral Society is a Community Performing Arts Chorus open to all vocalists within Transylvania County who are interested in performing choral music within a concert setting.