Community Choir, Washington State University Vancouver: Records and Sheet Music

The WSU Vancouver Community Choir was officially established in Fall 2002. The original choir consisted of twenty members, growing in size over the years to as many as forty-seven members. The idea for a community choir came from former Director of Facilities Operations, Bill Kelley, who gathered employees interested in singing for one hour weekly sessions. Lee Jennings, a retired music teacher, conducted the choir. MUS 432 (later replaced by MUS 499 in 2012) was offered on campus beginning in 2003. The class encouraged students to participate in the choir. In 2013 there were ten students participating in the choir, making up 20% of total membership. The choir was supported with funds from the WSU Vancouver Services and Activities Fees Committee along with contributions from individual donations.

The choir's repertoire included a wide and diverse range of popular, folk, traditional, classical and sacred music as well as world music sung in languages like Spanish, Latin, and Swahili among others. In 2006 the choir preformed "Songs of Nature" by Antonin Dvorak as well as show tunes like "Lullaby of Broadway" and "That's Entertainment." In 2007 the choir performed a selection of spirituals including "God's Trombones" by J.W. Johnson and R. Ringwald as part of a celebration of black authors, arrangers and composers of the 19th and 20th century. In the same year a medley of Beatles songs and "Gloria" by Vivaldi were performed. Proceeding years covered the theme of music from the theater, music from the Southern Hemisphere, "Missa Solemnis in B Flat," “Songs of Love's Lament," “Mass in G,” "Felix and Folks," and the works of Randall Thompson featuring "Frostiana" and the poems of Robert Frost set to music.

Following the loss of student activity funding through the elimination of MUS 499 in 2013, the choir attempted to reestablish itself as a student organization called the WSU Vancouver Community Choir Club. In late 2013, the choir bisbanded.