Athens Chamber Singers History
The Athens Chamber Singers was formed in 1979. Originally its repertoire focused on madrigals, but this soon expanded to include sacred and secular pieces of all eras. The Athens Chamber Singers have been under the leadership of four talented directors, beginning with founder John Hebblethwaite, followed by Tom Granum, Brenda Poss and, since 1995, Kevin Kelly.
In addition to its annual Yuletide Musical Dinners, the Chamber Singers present choral music through concerts, weddings, private parties, church services and civic festivals. The Singers performed at the Athens Renaissance Festival of the Arts. They premiered a Dave Brubeck composition with the Brubeck Trio at the Athens New Jazz Festival. They have sung with the Athens Symphony, for the Athens Olympics Festival concert, the Athens Bicentennial, at the Georgia Museum of Art, the ACC Public Library and various area churches. They have premiered several pieces by modern composers, and sponsored Rick Sowash as artist-in-residence.
Under Dr. Kelly’s direction, the Singers’ annual spring concerts focus on different historical periods and styles of music, such as the Spanish Renaissance, French chansons, German Baroque, 19th century American popular song, and the music of Monteverdi. These special themed concerts stem from Dr. Kelly’s endeavor to make the Chamber Singers’ presentations educational as well as entertaining. To this end, they prefer to sing pieces in their original languages, which in the past have
included (besides the Romance languages and Latin) more unusual ones such as Hebrew, Latvian, Czech, Swahili, Haitian French, Welsh and Irish Gaelic. Such seeking out of the lesser-known and smaller-scale choral repertory is one of the hallmarks of the Athens Chamber Singers.
