The Bluffton University Gospel Choir will present "A Night of Praise" beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday, April 21, in Yoder Recital Hall. The performance is free and open to the public; a free-will offering will be taken during intermission to help offset concert costs.
The 65-voice choir, which comprises campus and community members, will be accompanied by 21 instrumentalists. Among them is drummer Wesley Sellers, the brother of Dr. Crystal Sellers, the assistant professor of music at Bluffton who formed the choir in 2010 and remains its director.
A soprano, she will be a soloist on one concert number, "For Every Mountain," conducted by Dr. Jon C. Peterson, assistant professor of music. She will also sing a duet with Stephanie Patterson, a Bluffton senior from Findlay, Ohio, on an arrangement of "His Eye is on the Sparrow" from the film "Sister Act 2." In addition, Sellers, Peterson and Allison Ringold, an adjunct music instructor, will perform "A Closer Walk" with featured soloist Marquis Brown, a sophomore from University Heights, Ohio.
Jeff Boehr, the university's coordinator of church relations, will be a soloist for the premiere of "Praise Him," by Dr. Jeffrey Boehm, a Bluffton professor of music. Boehr, along with Sellers and Patterson, will also be among a 12-member ensemble singing an arrangement of "The Lord's Prayer."
The choir will present two songs by Dr. Raymond Wise, a composer, arranger, gospel historian and minister from Columbus, Ohio. Wise served as guest musician during a weeklong celebration of gospel at Bluffton last November.
