The Southeast Missouri State University Choir, Southeast Missouri Choral Union and Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra will be performing in a joint concert.

Community members sing within the Choral Union and it is made up of about 60 members. The University Choir is made up of about 40 students.

The first half of the concert will feature just the Symphony Orchestra playing pieces. Continuing on to the second half of the concert will then feature the choirs entering the stage and singing along with the orchestra.

The choir will sing Franz Schubert's "Mass in G Major" and Dr. Peter J. Durow, director of choral activities, said this was chosen because of the composer's age resemblance to students.

"Schubert wrote this when he was quite youthful," Durow said. "He was only 18 years old when he wrote it. It's kind of neat to do it with college kids because someone around their age wrote this."

The choirs will also perform a rendition of British composer C. Hubert H. Parry's piece called "Blest Pair of Sirens." This piece was performed at the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's, Prince William and Catherine (Kate) Middleton, wedding and was used for its powerful ending.

Durow hopes that students who attend the concert will be able to learn a lot about these composers and step outside the box to hear new music.

"Hopefully they'll [students] be transported to another world and they can come and relax and close their eyes if they want and enjoy the different sounds and be released from their everyday life," Durow said.

Durow also feels this is an amazing opportunity for students involved in Choral Union and the University Choir to sing with an orchestra, something that is not done a lot at other schools.

"It's a huge undertaking and collaboration for the students," Durow said. "Just to have an opportunity to sing with an orchestra is wonderful because we're the perfect size university, and we are large enough so that we do have a nice-sized orchestra and multiple choirs. Some smaller schools, they can't do that. They can only do it once every couple years, and, here, we're doing it every semester. It's something that our students may not appreciate now, but it is something they will when they leave."

Dr. Sara Edgerton, director of the Southeast Missouri Symphony Orchestra, said that she feels it is important that the choirs and orchestra perform together for the benefit of the students and the university.

"It's very important that we perform together; it's sort of a tradition," Edgerton said. "We've been doing these combined concerts for many years. These are wonderful pieces for orchestra and choirs, and, to my knowledge, there is quite a lot of interest in this."

The University Choir, Choral Union and Symphony Orchestra concert will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 2 in the Donald C. Bedell Performance Hall.

Tickets for this event can be purchased at the River Campus Box Office and a student discount is offered.