Join the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music for an evening of choral music, featuring the UCLA Chamber Singers and UCLA Chorale combined with our special visitors, the Virginia State University Concert Choir.

The Virginia State University Concert Choir will be at UCLA for a weeklong residency that will involve interactive workshops focused on the concerted spiritual and gospel performance practice, rehearsals with the UCLA choral ensembles, and a concert in which three recently prepared manuscripts of Undine Smith Smith's choral works will be performed in an intercollegiate collaboration. Widely considered the “Dean of Black Women Composers,” Undine Smith Moore was a Professor at Virginia State University, one of the first public HBCUs, where she taught piano and theory, composed choral music, and ran the Black research center. This concert will feature a segment where choral singers from UCLA and VSU will perform together.

On Friday, March 14, The Center for Musical Humanities will host a day-long symposium that celebrates the music of Undine Smith Moore and the choral tradition from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Learn more about the March 14 symposium.

This event is made possible by the David and Irmgard Dobrow Fund. Classical music was a passion of the Dobrows, who established a generous endowment at The UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music to make programs like this possible. We are proud to celebrate this program as part of the 2024 - 25 Dobrow Series.

This event is made possible through the Professor Ciro Zoppo Graduate Student Award in Music (UCLA), Chancellor Arts Initiative (UCLA), Center for Musical Humanities (UCLA), the Virginia State University Department of Music, the Virginia State University Concert Choir-Alumni Association, and the generous support of donors and sponsors to the Virginia State University Concert Choir Foundation.

This program is made possible by the Joyce S. and Robert U. Nelson Fund. Robert Uriel Nelson was a revered musicologist and music professor at UCLA, who, together with his wife, established a generous endowment for the university to make programs like this possible.