CLP: Belle Voci and Chamber Choir in concert

Belle Voci (treble choir) and Chamber Choir present a shared fall concert Tuesday, Oct. 24, at 7:30 p.m. in Daniel Memorial Chapel on the campus of Furman University. This performance is free of charge and open to the public.

The music presented represents various styles, idioms, and cultures, with a particular highlight on arrangements of folk songs. Chamber Choir will present the multimovement work, “A Procession Winding Around Me” by Jeffrey Van, consisting of poems of Walt Whitman set to music.

Vivian Hamilton: Vivian Hamilton is director of Belle Voci (formerly known as the Furman Womens’ Chorale) and a collaborative pianist in the music department.  She also serves as minister of music and worship at First Baptist Church in Greenville, South Carolina. Hamilton has been a singer in the Robert Shaw Institute Festival Singers where she had the opportunity to work with Robert Shaw, and she studied conducting with Dan Lewis and Edvard Tchivzhel. She has worked with choirs at Simmons College, Emerson College, the University of South Carolina, Northeastern University, and Clemson University. For 12 years, she conducted the Greater Anderson Musical Arts Consortium Chorale, and is a former president of the South Carolina American Choral Directors Association. Her choral conducting experience also includes work at Baptist and Methodist churches in Massachusetts and South Carolina, and in the public schools of Boston and Upstate South Carolina.

She received her Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting from the University of South Carolina, her master’s degree in piano performance from New England Conservatory of Music, and her bachelor’s degree in music education from Furman University.

Stephen Gusukuma, Department of Music.

Stephen Gusukuma: Stephen Gusukuma joins the faculty at Furman University after serving as a Senior Lecturer in Choral Music at Baylor University where he conducted numerous choral ensembles and taught almost the entire gamut of ensembles, choral conducting, methods, and literature at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Ensembles under his direction have appeared across the US and internationally. He is an active conductor, clinician and adjudicator, and he recently conducted the Texas Two-Year College All-State Choir in 2022.

Gusukuma has conducted on the stage of Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, at the 2014 MusicFest Canada, Texas Music Educators Association Convention, and in top tier venues such as National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. In the summer of 2013, he was a Conducting Fellow at the Lisbon Summer Choir Fest, a partnership between the World Youth Choir, the University of Michigan, and the Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa. He prepared choruses for the GRAMMY nominated recording of Milhaud: Oresteia of Aeschylus, released by Naxos, and his work is featured on “Ye Shall Have a Song! Celebrating America’s Three Oldest Collegiate Choirs,” a recording release by the Harvard, Michigan, and Yale Glee Clubs.

Gusukuma holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, where he studied with Jerry Blackstone and Eugene Rogers. He holds the Bachelor of Music Education and the Master of Music degrees from Baylor University where he studied conducting with Alan Raines, Stephen Heyde, and Eric Wilson, Donald Bailey and Christopher Bianco.

Belle Voci: Belle Voci (Beautiful Voices) is a treble choir that seeks to share music that not only expresses the art of beautiful singing but hopes that the language of music can be a connection to help find our common humanity, and to create a supportive and nurturing community of artists and scholars.

2010 photo of Chamber Choir.

Chamber Choir: The Furman Chamber Choir is a premier mixed ensemble of some of Furman’s finest singers. The Chamber Choir presents two liturgical concerts yearly, in collaboration with the Office of Spiritual Life: in December, A Service of Lessons and Carols (a beloved tradition inaugurated in 1996 upon the opening of Charles E. Daniel Memorial Chapel), and on Palm Sunday, A Palm and Passion Service of Lesson and Song. The choir also has its own or shared performances on a project-to-project basis ranging from chamber masterworks to participation in the Furman Church Music Conference. The Chamber Choir performs a wide range of accompanied and a cappella works spanning the Renaissance to modern choral music.