Co-Lin Choir to debut work at Carnegie Hall in New York

Special to Wesson News

Dr. Bobby G. Helms, Director of Choral Activities and Theater, is taking his college choir to Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Along with the Jackson-based Mississippi Boys Choir, also directed by Helms, the Presbyterian Christian School choir from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the Tyler, Texas, First Baptist Church choir and a New York City choir, the Co-Lin choir will perform the world premiere of To Truly Love on May 25 at the famed Gotham venue.

“It all started back in 2024, when I took a phone call from MidAmerica Productions (MAP) asking me if I would be interested in directing a choral ensemble at Carnegie Hall,” Helms recalls.

MAP is a renowned music production company that specializes in organizing and producing concerts in New York City and worldwide.  Since its founding in 1984, MAP has grown into a leading independent producer of choral concerts, presenting international conductors, soloists, and ensembles at New York’s premier venues and around the world.

MAP invited Helms to bring along choral groups that he directed or with which he had an association to perform a work it could provide or a new one he could find.

“I knew Sherry Blevins from when I was student and Raphael Fusco from Vienna, Austria, as a team that could create a luminous work for choir, soloists and orchestra,” Helms says.  “They agreed to develop a work for the Carnegie Hall stage.”

Blevins wrote the lyrics and Fusco did the orchestration for To Truly Love, a powerful 25-minute work that explores the intricate relationship between parents and their children, tracing the human journey from innocence and self-discovery through despair and redemption, culminating in a radiant affirmation of love’s enduring power.  Its five movements – The Wonder of Your Life, Your Masterpiece, When Darkness Came, Stary Here with Me and To Truly Love – offer singers of all ages a shared musical and emotional experience.  The work’s sweeping orchestral colors, heartfelt melodies and expressive language illuminate themes of hope, belonging and acceptance.    

Two weeks before departing for New York City, the choir will be rehearsing the new work.  Since August, the choir has been laser-focused on fundraising for the travel to the scheduled performance and spending five days and four nights in New York City at the Midtown Hilton Hotel with visits to Central Park and Times Square, dining at famous restaurants, a dinner cruise and attending Death Becomes Her on Broadway.

Each choir member on the trip is paying $3000 and supporting donations have been made by the Mississippi Boys Choir, Co-Lin and members of the general public.  The choir’s fundraisers have included popcorn sales and a dinner theater production of a Mardi Gras-themed murder mystery with a silent auction before the event.  The choir is planning a second dinner theater production of a Mafia-themed murder mystery coupled with a silent auction is planned.  Co-Lin students scripted the murder mysteries.