Rock Island Today

WQAD-TV recently issued the following announcement.

Mackenzie Rice, Bettendorf, got the thrill of a lifetime Easter Sunday along with 242 of her Iowa State University classmates as they performed at world-famous Carnegie Hallin New York City.

“I think we sounded pretty good,” the violinist said Monday before catching her flight back from New York. She's a 2018 Bettendorf High School graduate and associate concertmaster of the 76-member ISU Symphony Orchestra. “The concert hall is absolutely beautiful. It didn't even feel real that I was there.”

The orchestra joined the Iowa State Singers, Iowa Statesmen, ISU Cantamus Women's Choir and the Lyrica Women's Choir in performing “Dona nobis pacem” (which means “Grant us peace”), a cantata written by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1936. The student orchestra separately played Edvard Grieg's Symphonic Dance No. 4 at the concert Sunday night.

“Carnegie was very strict about using the space,” said Rice, who's played violin for nearly 10 years. “They made everybody leave really soon after the concert ended. They were strict about who goes where. I have a friend in choir, and they wouldn't let me go through dressing rooms.”

Students also couldn't take photos from the stage during their pre-concert sound check, and no one could shoot during the concert, she said. “It was still really cool overall.”

“It's really special if you can get there once every 20 years,” Tom Cunningham, interim director of the ISU orchestra, said Tuesday, noting it's common for Carnegie Hall to be rented to student groups from across the country. As a singer at Westminster Choir College, he performed at Carnegie in 2012 with the Berlin Philharmonic in Mahler's Symphony No. 2.

“As a performer, you make the sounds, create so much of the experience, and as a conductor, you're more a conduit to get the experience together,” Cunningham said of performing in the hallowed hall. “They're both wonderful.”

“It's been incredible,” he said of the ISU preparation and performance. “They've been so focused, so connected. What's so special about this, they've grown so much closer together. The day of the concert, there was so much excitement, energy. I think they handled it very well. The hall is so spectacular.”

ISU, based in Ames, has been no stranger to Carnegie Hall in recent years. The Cantamus Women's Choir did a collegiate concert there April 1, 2018; the same Vaughan Williams piece was done with a professional orchestra in 2014; and the Iowa State Singers also performed there about three years ago, said James Rodde, ISU director of choral activities, who conducted every time.

"It's always special for new students, new music, challenges with the music," he said Tuesday of singing at Carnegie. "It's always fun, always a fulfilling experience. We really strive to achieve at a high level."

"I do think it plants great memories and seeds for continued choral experiences in the future." Rodde said.

The Iowa State Singers have toured throughout North America, as well as in England, Poland, Russia, Australia, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, China and Korea.

In March 2013, conductor Laura Lane brought the Knox College Choir to the majestic Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall to perform Haydn's "Lord Nelson Mass" with the Monmouth Chorale, members of the Galesburg Community Chorus, Knox alumni in Chicago, and students from St. Ambrose University in Davenport and Galesburg and Rock Island high schools.

The Augustana College Choir and Handel Oratorio Society performed at Carnegie Hall in 2010 and 2011.

Original source can be found here.