Friday, April 12, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
The UNLV University Singers, conducted by Davis Weiller, will present their 10th annual "Home Concert" at 8 p.m. April 19 in the Clark County Library theater, 1401 E. Flamingo Road.
The concert features the choir in highlights from its coming tour, which will include Nevada and Northern California.
A song of welcome from New Zealand opens the performance and will be sung in its original Maori dialect. "Latin Motets of Joy" encompasses 400 years of music and explores four aspects of religious fervor: jubilation, meditation, faith and love. "Songs of Romance" features excerpts from Brahms' entertaining "Lovesong Waltzes."
Pianists Amy Homer and Michael Cundari will accompany the choir in these folklife settings reminiscent of the popular waltz king Johann Strauss.
The concert's centerpiece, "Songs of Our World and Beyond," examines the world through the eyes of three contemporary artists. Through the use of chanting, speaking and movement, Venezuelan composer Alberto Grau dramatically portrays the endangered environment in "Kasar Me la Gaji," a traditional saying from the African Sahel that means "the Earth is tired."
Kirke Mechem's surrealistic "Island in Space" views the Earth as a small spot floating in eternity as it blends together texts by poet Archibald MacLeish and astronaut Russell Schweickart. Leonard Bernstein's "Make Our Garden Grow" from the musical "Candide" provides an optimistic message for the future.
Gian Carlo Menotti's magical madrigal fable, "The Unicorn, the Gorgon and the Manticore," concludes the concert in a collaborative performance with dancers from the university's department of dance arts.
Admission is $8; students, seniors and military are $6. Tickets are on sale at the UNLV Performing Arts Center box office, 895-3801.
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