Later this month, University of Northern Colorado (UNC) Choirs will bring together renowned guest conductor Simon Carrington, over 20 UNC alumni, eight conducting fellows, five UNC faculty soloists/lecturers and four choirs for a concert of large-scale choral masterworks. 

This will be the seventh time Carrington has conducted the Bailey Choral Festival. His career has taken him around the world, with much time spent in his native UK, where he co-founded the acclaimed The King’s Singers, and in the United States, where he taught at Yale University, New England Conservatory and University of Kansas. He is known for conducting choral masterworks, which have become the mainstay of the festival, and the tradition of hosting him in Greeley has made him well-regarded among music educators in the region. 

The culminating concert of Bailey Choral Festival, entitled “A Classical Celebration,” will be on Saturday, Nov. 23, at 7:30 p.m., in UNC Campus Commons Performance Hall. Jonathan Bellman, UNC professor of Music History and Literature, will give a pre-concert talk, and slated for the program are Haydn’s Te Deum and Lord Nelson Mass, Mozart’s Regina coeli and additional works by Franz Schubert and Baldassare Galuppi. UNC’s four choirs (directed by Jill Burgett, Clelyn Chapin and Jeff Talley) and the UNC Symphony Orchestra (directed by Andrés Felipe Jaime) will be joined by guest alumni singers and UNC faculty soloists (Mandy Spivak, soprano; Logan Contreras, mezzo-soprano; Charles Moore, tenor) along with David Grogan, guest bass soloist. Galen Darrough will serve as Master of Ceremonies.  

The Bailey Choral Festival began in 2010 and is named after benefactor and UNC alum Donald Bailey, Baylor University professor emeritus, and his wife, Karen Bailey. With additional financial support from UNC professors emeriti Howard Skinner and Darrough, it has continued every two years since, apart from a brief hiatus in 2020, and has continued to bring together students, alumni and guests for large works for choir and orchestra. This year the festival adds the UNC Choral Conducting Symposium, with eight conducting fellows chosen from around the country who will have a three-day residency of workshops and master classes with Carrington and UNC faculty, plus the opportunity to sing in the final performance.  

Tickets can be purchased at https://tickets.unco.edu/online/article/bailey/. 

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