The Fullerton College Concert Choir and Chamber Singers made the seasons change at their Fall Choir Concert on Wednesday, Oct. 25. With their crisp voices and the help of their conductor Nicola Bertoni Dedmon, the singers put their all into the performance with two songs that were composed by two of the choral studies faculty members.

Almost all of the pieces were created by living composers, a small but critical detail that Dedmon thought gave a feel to the concert that was different from the one last year.

“I really wanted to feature more new music by living composers since last year we were very heavy on historical repertoire,” said Dedmon. “I also wanted to feature composers from more marginalized backgrounds, so we had more women and composers of color. That was very important to me.”

The first half of the concert was based upon the symbolism of the changing seasons with the pieces having a dark-sounding undertone that crescendos into a lighter sound that correlates with the coming of spring and the rising of the Sun.

“For the chamber singers, there was a theme of the seasons passing and going from the darkness of the winter into the light and all the symbolism that goes along with that,” said Dedmon, who is also the coordinator of choral studies at Fullerton College.

The symbolism of rising light became apparent in the chamber singers’ last piece “So Breaks The Sun” composed by Shavon Lloyd. For most of the song, the choir sings in a slow pace with clashing minor and major key melodies that could give one goosebumps with shades of sadness. This is until the choir started to sing the chorus, “So breaks the sun,” where they sing in a slow pace that turns into a fast crescendo, imitating the sunrise ending a cold winter night.

“The chorus in ‘So Breaks The Sun’ almost sounds like a news report,” said choral program treasurer Mia Zaragoza. “It’s fast paced and there are so many complex harmonies in that piece. It was the most fun to sing!”

The second and final set of pieces was sung by the almost 90-person concert choir of Fullerton College. In this second set were locally composed pieces “The Prow” and “Barter.”

“The Prow,” composed by faculty member Matthew Lyon Hazzard, was centered around a poem entitled “The Prow” written by his late father-in-law.

“I looked at these poems and I found myself in them,” said Hazzard. “This one describes an incredible scene of John sailing out into the ocean with dolphins starting to play in their wake. There is something needed to be said about this piece which is you cannot experience the highest high without experiencing the lowest low.”

During the song, the choir sang with a passion that honored the composition of the piece. The group made tasteful ocean noises, with bass singer Joshua Mirador even being able to imitate the sound of a seagull. This, with their voices, brought the piece to life for all in attendance and was a tremendous tribute to the poem that created a foundation for the music that came to be.

Mirador spoke on how the music moved him. “I really tend to think more about the words and what the music feels like to me and the music just poured out of me, and I couldn’t even stop it,” said Mirador.

“Barter” was one of the last songs in the second set and was composed by faculty member Joshua Tan. The Fall Choral Concert was the world premiere of his song.

“I thought about all of you [the choir], each point of view when I wrote this music,” said Tan. “It was a collaborative process with them so hopefully you can tell that we built something special here at Fullerton.”

This was a great piece to add to the end of the performance as the text built around it was written by Sara Teasdale, an American poet criticized for being too literal in her poems. The literal nature of her writing made her poems understandable to a wide set audience.

“I chose this poem because I wanted a text that was relatable to everyone,” said Tan.

The piece starts with the choir echoing the word “life” and abruptly, but succinctly blends into the rest of the piece that sounds as though you are being taken on a journey through the beauties of life. To help drive this point home, the choir would echo and repeat words that related life to nature, showing that nature is a prime example of the loveliness that life and the world holds.

The Fullerton College Choir is having an upcoming concert on Nov. 9 for their Treble and Bass Chorale. For more information, visit the music department website.