BCCS welcomes spring through song

Published 7:23 pm Saturday, April 14, 2012

Members of the Beaufort County Choral Society practice at the Grace Harwell Senior Center on Main Street, Washington, for their upcoming Spring Song concert. (WDN Photo/Vail Stewart Rumley)

With azaleas in full bloom, iris and amaryllis popping up in yards everywhere, spring is in full swing. To nature’s beauty, add the beautiful strains of music — Spring Song, a concert celebrating the season of growth and renewal to be performed by the Beaufort County Choral Society this weekend.

The opening concert is slated for 7:30 p.m. Saturday at First Baptist Church, on the corner of Hackney and Main streets in Washington. St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Bath will host the second concert at 3 p.m. Sunday.

“The acoustics in St. Thomas are wonderful,” said Monica Ferrari, BCCS singer and steering committee member. “The voices just fill up the room.”

The Beaufort County Choral Society entertains local music lovers twice a year at their widely popular Christmas concert and then again in the spring. Saturday’s and Sunday’s concerts find them putting their voices to Spring Song, a collection of pieces ranging from comical classics like “Doing What Comes Naturally” from Irving Berlin’s Broadway musical “Annie Get Your Gun” to Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus,” one of the great composer’s most famous and most popular works, written six months before his death.

The concert will be conducted by Tom Feller, a Greenville music educator and choir director, and accompanied on piano by his wife, Melissa.

When the final strains of Spring Song are played, the choral society will disperse for the summer. They will meet up again in early fall to get a head start on their Christmas concert.

According to Ferrari, the BCCS welcomes new voices.

“We are always open to new members,” said Ferrari. “You don’t have to read music, but you do want to be able to carry a tune.”

BCCS concerts are free and open to the public.