Canyon Concert Ballet is excited to partner with Larimer Chorale for their 42nd season opener, Carmina Burana! The Chorale will be performing the scenic cantata for its 42nd season opener on Saturday, October 20, at 7:30 at the Lincoln Center in Fort Collins. Along with the 130 voices of the chorus and three guest soloists, the performance will feature Canyon Concert Ballet company dancers and the Centennial Children’s Chorus. The local collaboration will give audiences the rare opportunity of experiencing the work as Carl Orff had intended, a dazzling presentation of music and movement in telling stories on subjects ranging from drinking, gambling, changes in fortune, gluttony, lust, love, nature and the inevitable cycle of life that brings rebirth each year.
From the opening bars, many in the audience will recognize “O Fortuna,” music that continues to be used often in popular culture venues – films, athletic competitions, advertising, social media. But it will be few in the audience who will have ever seen the piece performed combining music, poetry and dance together to create a total effect as this performance will do. The powerful, mesmerizing and rhythmic work is based on secular – and carnal – 13th Century poetry and texts, in which ancient Latin mixes with Middle High German and Old Provençal French.
Our talented dancers from the CCB company will interpret the poems and stories into movement under the direction of our fabulous artistic director and choreographer, Alicia Laumann. The Chorale and the dancers will be accompanied by Alice Crawford and Paul Falk on two grand pianos with percussion provided by the University of Northern Colorado Percussion Ensemble under the direction of Mike Truesdell. The voices of the Centennial Children’s Chorus, Sheri McKelfresh, artistic director, will complete this regional collaboration of performing arts groups.
The Larimer Chorale will also be singing three inspired motets by Johannes Brahms, Fest- und Gedenksprüche Op 109 (Festival and Commemoration Sentences).
Tickets are available at the Lincoln Center Box Office at 970-221-6730 or on-line at www.lctix.com.
After a distinguished career teaching at the college and university levels, Michael Todd Krueger has dedicated himself to the cause of the adult, avocational singer. He currently serves as conductor and artistic director of the Larimer Chorale, music director of Voices West (formerly Littleton Chorale) and as minister of music at King of Glory Lutheran Church in Arvada. Through his work with these choruses, he is known for his healthy, inspiring and unique approach to singing for adults
Faculty, Madeline and Matthew Harvey, will be performing their piece “Temptation” at our 
The history of the development of ballet as a French court dance form is well known. What may be a lesser known is the fact that this history is completely inter-meshed with the history of the expected behavior of the king’s courtiers, whose everyday lives where regulated in the most extreme ways. The grip of these imposed rituals was unyielding — from clothing, to language, to food, to where one should sit or stand. One courtier once quipped, “The austerities of a convent are nothing compared the the austerities of etiquette to which the King’s courtiers are subjected.” It is during this time period – the 17th century particularly – that we see the use of two French words come into popularity: comportement and étiquette. Together they paint a picture of the historical beginnings of ballet as prescribed personal bearing, carriage, and behavior. During the reign of King Louis XIV, behaving wrongly was at the peril of one’s life!
