CHAMPAIGN — The Chorale is celebrating its annual spring concert with a variety of songs all about love. Kathie Spegal is the director of Illinois Radio Reader at Illinois Public Media and a longtime member of The Chorale. Morning Edition host Kimberly Schofield spoke with Spegal about The Chorale and its upcoming concert.
This interview has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
KATHIE SPEGAL: The Chorale is a group of about 40 to 50 adults — mostly adults … we’ve had some high school students in the past — who just love to sing. And we do a wide variety of music, from the secular to the modern, and it’s to provide entertainment for other people that are in the community.
KIMBERLY SCHOFIELD: Wow, I was in the chorale for a very short time, in 2015 or 16, but I really enjoyed my time there. It was fun to see so many people passionate about music.
SPEGAL: I think that’s the best part.
SCHOFIELD: The Chorale has a concert coming up.
SPEGAL: We do.
SCHOFIELD: Can you tell me what the concert title is and what the theme is?
SPEGAL: The Love We Carry. What we have inside of us that we give to others through a variety of ways. So every music piece that we’re doing somehow covers that topic from a different era, in a different language. So we’re doing German, ecclesiastical Latin, and English, and one’s in kind of a Scottish … has Scottish accents.
SCHOFIELD: Are there songs that you knew ahead of time?
SPEGAL: Well, because I grew up Catholic, I knew Ave Verum Corpus, because that’s a really old Latin song, and I learned that in fifth grade, I think. So, yes, that was familiar.
SCHOFIELD: Are there any songs that perhaps people know from any sort of media at all?
SPEGAL: Absolutely. You’ve Got a Friend, which is the Carole King song. So, we’re doing a rendition of that from Broadway. And then we also have one from RENT, the Seasons of Love. My favorite one is “525,600 minutes,” that’s how many minutes there are in a year, and it’s very syncopated, and that’s what we’re going to finish … very upbeat this time. So we’ve got love songs from Scotland, we’ve got two René Clausen pieces.
SCHOFIELD: For people who come to see the show … what can they expect to see?
SPEGAL: Well, they’ll see a group of 40 people up in the front of this church. For our intermission, we introduce our scholarship winners. One thing The Chorale does every year is to take their money and give it to students who are aspiring musicians in whatever field, whether it’s vocal or instrumental. So we do have auditions, and there’s a panel who audition the students, and this year we will have those three students come and they’ll play or sing, and then the audience can appreciate the next generation of musicians.
SCHOFIELD: What do you enjoy the most about The Chorale or about this concert?
SPEGAL: I love making music, and I love making music with other people. It’s one thing to do your own thing, but when you join such a large group, and all of that comes together to make such a wonderful sound. Our director is so good. He is so good about giving people visual cues about what he wants to hear. So that, for me is the final product, is when you all come together, all in unison. I mean, whether we’re in parts, but we’re all singing together to make a beautiful sound.