Chorus Work at CLU

As a graduate teaching assistant at the UCLA music department, Gregg Smith had a particular interest in choral music.

Smith set forth to organize a group of talented students and young professionals with a common interest. Their mission was to join forces and share with the masses the music that inspired them.

That was 1955. And today--having since garnered three Grammy Awards and recorded more than 100 albums--The Gregg Smith Singers remain at the forefront of great choral groups.

The group, which has experienced many personnel changes over the years, has toured internationally since 1958. It now performs as many as 50 concerts annually.

A stop at Cal Lutheran University on Monday night will give Ventura County residents the opportunity to enjoy the 16-member chorus.

The program will span musical generations.

“As a composer, my great passion is the 20th Century and that has come to be our specialty,” Smith said recently.

The chorus will perform a number of 20th-Century works including a piece by Cal Lutheran choral director James Fritschel and an original piece by Smith, he said.

Renaissance and 19th-Century music will also be performed.

Smith has been credited with a choral innovation he refers to as “multidimensional sound presentation.”

By positioning groups of singers in the audience, the chorus and the music revolve around the auditorium and the audience, Smith said.

“We have created music for space,” he said. “We find ways to make much of it spatial.”

The second half of the performance features a homage to Aaron Copland and classic American songs.

“We have a motto we try to live by when we perform,” Smith said. “Our three E’s: education, enlightenment and entertainment. We think we have to fulfill those three things for a quality performance.”

The performance begins at 8 p.m. and will be held in Samuelson Chapel. General admission is $5; free with Cal Lutheran identification. The campus is at 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks. For more information, call the university relations office at 493-3151.