In Your Light, We See Light: Valparaiso University Chorale Prepares to Embark on Spring 2025 Tour

The Valparaiso University department of music and Bach Institute will travel across Michigan from Feb. 28 to March 5 as part of the 2025 spring tour “In Your Light, We See Light”. Stops will include St. Lorenz Lutheran Church in Frankenmuth, Historic Trinity Lutheran Church in Detroit, Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Saginaw and Our Savior Lutheran Church in Lansing. Concerts are free and open to the public.

“I cannot wait to form stronger connections with my fellow chorale performers as we travel and bring our music out into a wider community to enjoy,” said Becca Shatte ’25, a music education major at Valparaiso University. “The chorale has become not only my music community but my family. I am really looking forward to touring with them again.”

Performances will feature the Valparaiso University Chorale and Chamber Orchestra. Performances will be led by conductors Marin Jacobson, DMA, Director of Choral and Vocal Activities and Diego Piedra, DMA, Director of the Valparaiso University Symphony Orchestra and professor of violin. The music will include anthems, hymns, chamber music, and excerpts from J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion. 

In addition to performances by the chorale and chamber orchestra, shows on the tour will include Szu-Ping Chang Wong, organist and pianist, and Professor Piedra as violin soloist in a performance of “Winter” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons.

“I am excited to go on this tour because we will share our music and give a taste of the work that we do here at Valpo,” Professor Piedra said. “It is my hope that our audiences can appreciate our artistry and the joy with which we give our performances, both from a musical perspective as well as an educated performance practice.”

The public performances give students a chance to share their talents, and to live out Valparaiso University’s Lutheran heritage and institutional values. 

“In Chorale, we emphasize serving others through music, and the tour will be filled with blessing others through our music,” Professor Jacobson said. “I’m eager to see the Chorale enjoying the music and the satisfaction of knowing they sang well and enriched the lives of those who heard them.”

Serving others is one of the four pillars of the University’s five-year plan, Uplift Valpo: Our Beacon for the Journey Forward.

Concerts begin at Valparaiso University’s Chapel of the Resurrection on Friday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m. For more details about the tour, and a full schedule of performances, visit the tour website here.