The Heinz Chapel Choir’s EngagePitt campaign to fund our international tour to Denmark & Sweden comes to a close on December 31. Your generosity has been remarkable and we’re all so grateful for your support.

The campaign’s purpose was to make the tour financially possible for the choir members and reaching our initial goal of $10,000 allowed us to complete the funding for a Tour Scholarship for each singer. But your gifts continued and now you’ve more than doubled that amount! Those additional funds will be directly applied to the singers’ final tour payment, making the trip even more affordable for all of them.

We can’t wait to return to campus next week to get back to rehearsing and to write you some thank you notes! Please check in with us at our website (heinzchapelchoir.com), Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages for updates as we count down to our departure in April. We hope to see you at our spring concert in Heinz Chapel on Sunday, April 19 or at our Tour Farewell concert on Monday, April 27 (or both)! We’ll be sending you postcards from Scandinavia and hope you’ll join us in this adventure by reading our Tour Blog posts at our website.

As we count down the final minutes of the year, we send you our best wishes for a healthy and happy 2020 filled with song!

The Members of the Heinz Chapel Choir & Susan Rice, Director

We’re extremely grateful for your generosity and stunned to have reached our $10,000 campaign goal shortly before Thanksgiving! These funds, together with 3 years of our holiday concert ticket sales, will provide a Tour Scholarship for each of the 47 singers traveling to Denmark and Sweden. In addition, each student will make a significant personal contribution to the cost of tour expenses and setting aside those resources can be challenging.

We have 29 days (and 4 concerts!) remaining before our campaign comes to an end on December 31. Inspired by your support, we’re increasing our goal to $15,000, which will allow us to reduce each singer’s personal contribution by $106.

We hope to sing for you in the coming week at the Heinz Memorial Chapel, a special place that is dear to us and, we know, to so many of you. But if you are far from Pittsburgh, please look for the link to the WQED broadcast and internet livestream of our performance on Friday, December 6 at www.music.pitt.edu

Once again, thank you for helping to make this tour to Denmark and Sweden possible for us. Please take a moment to watch the short video message below from our singers. We appreciate each one of you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Susan Rice

Director, Heinz Chapel Choir

This week finds the members of the Heinz Chapel Choir scattered near and far for Pitt’s full week of Thanksgiving break. We’re all grateful to have this short respite before the sprint to the close of the semester and the opportunity to share a special meal and conversation with family and friends. We’re also mindful of our blessings, not least of which are our HCC friendships and the gift of the music that we’ll sing for you in just a handful of days.

We thought it fitting that our “Thanksgiving Ambassadors” should be 3 members of HCC’s Tenor 2 section – Anthony Lucchitti (’23, Computer Science), Ryan Steinly (’22, Spanish and Classics), and Drew Armstrong (’19, Rehabilitation Science) – who embody that special HCC camaraderie through their voices and spirits.

Asked to reflect on his short time in the choir, Anthony tells us that “as a new member, I learned quickly how deeply rooted HCC is in its traditions and I value them and look forward to upholding them in the future.” Ryan advised Anthony to “savor the little moments. For me personally, one of those moments is on tour, when we have the opportunity to interact with our audience and hear their stories along with what our repertoire means to them. It’s deeply personal, touching, and [an experience] I’ll never forget.” Drew added, “Tour is fun and singing in new places is great, but really just enjoy every moment that you have in the Heinz Chapel. Our chapel concerts are really special, especially with the 80th anniversary and the holiday concerts, and they’re something I’ll always cherish.”

Every member of HCC is grateful for your care and support of the choir. We wish you all a warm and wonderful Thanksgiving and hope to see you in Heinz Chapel soon!

You’ve more than doubled our campaign total in the 6 days since our last update! We’re so grateful for your support and really excited to perform our Holiday Concerts for you after Thanksgiving. We’re particularly thankful for the senior members of HCC who are helping our 22 new members prepare for their first concerts in the Heinz Chapel.

Meet Gracie Dunn, a fifth-year senior and our Soprano 1 section leader! Gracie is an Industrial Engineering major with a minor in Chemical Engineering, who has been a member of the choir since the fall of 2015. She participated in the 2017 tour to England and Scotland and is excited to be going on an international tour again.

“I haven’t been outside of the country very many times, and that was definitely my first time in Europe. Learning about a choral tradition in a different country was so new to me – I’ll never forget learning about the English and Scottish choral traditions. Heading to Denmark and Sweden, I’m excited to learn about [their unique traditions] and how they differ from ours. I’m ready with an open mind and I’m really excited to have this experience with a new group of singers! I love that I can connect quickly to people who share my passion. A love for singing can draw people together, even across continents.”

We’re thrilled to see that the EngagePitt campaign for the Heinz Chapel Choir’s international tour to Denmark & Sweden is already at 16% of our $10,000 goal! We all truly appreciate your generosity and support.

We’re working hard to prepare for our Holiday Concert Series and look forward to rehearsing in the Chapel this week! We hope to see you at one of the performances (ticket information here), but if you’re far from Pittsburgh, we hope you’ll join us for the live WQED broadcast and webstream of our performance on Friday, December 6 at 8:15pm. (Look for a live link and digital concert program at music.pitt.edu on the day of the concert.)

In the meantime, we’d like to introduce you to a few of the current members of HCC. They’re bright and thoughtful humans as well as wonderful musicians and we hope you enjoy reading about them!

Iain Crammond, Heinz Chapel Choir President and recipient of the 2019 John Goldsmith Award, is a senior majoring in Film Studies and English Writing with a minor in Economics. He is so grateful to have had the chance to interact with HCC alumni at the 80th reunion and appreciates all they continue to do for the choir.

“The most meaningful aspect of the 80th reunion for me was hearing how important this choir has been for decades of singers before us. As a current member of the choir, it's easy to talk about how special this ensemble is to me. But to witness all of the alumni come back and speak about how they still cherish this choir and their time singing, it just filled me with joy and made me proud to carry on the legacy of the Heinz Chapel Choir.”

Iain was also a part of the 2017 International Tour to England and Scotland and our May 2019 tour to Chicagoland and SE Wisconsin. Some of his favorite memories from HCC were made during his time on tour and he can’t wait to sing in Denmark and Sweden.

“My favorite HCC tradition is ending our concerts on tour by walking into the audience and meeting the crowd. It’s so rewarding to connect with people from different parts of the country and the world who appreciate choral music and have come to hear us perform.”