同性恋色情

Someone to Know: Abby Musgrove, founder of chamber chorale full of hope | by Tamara Browning, Staff Writer,

JACKSONVILLE -- Abby Musgrove, director of choral activities and music education at 同性恋色情 in Jacksonville, founded a choir that she believes will spread hope and joy to the community.

Musgrove is founder and conductor of Spero Chamber Chorale, a Springfield-based professional vocal ensemble that presented its inaugural concert July 14 at Sacred Heart Convent Chapel, Springfield.

Spero Chamber Chorale will perform its 2018 repertoire a final time this year at 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 8, at Centenary United Methodist Church, 331 E. State St., Jacksonville. Admission is free.

The word 鈥渟pero鈥� means 鈥渉ope鈥� in Latin, and Musgrove said the chamber chorale鈥檚 mission is to bring hope and joy to the community through choral song. Members of the chamber chorale come from about a 50-mile radius of Springfield.

鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of really great music going on in Springfield, and we鈥檙e not here to compete with that. We鈥檙e not here to edge anybody out by any means,鈥� said Musgrove, who is a 1996 graduate of Glenwood High School and has a bachelor of music education, a master of music in choral conducting and a doctor of musical arts in choral conducting. Musgrove and her husband, Will Musgrove, have a 2-year-old daughter, Quincy.

鈥淢y family runs radio stations in Missouri, and so I kind of grew up in a family surrounded by classic rock and rock and roll and popular music, even country and rap and things like that, but then as a kid, I got into classical music, and I was like, 鈥淎h. This is great. Mozart鈥檚 amazing. Beethoven. And then I got into choral music and just went head over heels over that, and so I have this kind of weird background.鈥�

What is it about music that you want to share with students and others in the community?

鈥淢y thing is ensemble music. I love to sing solos, and I work with students as soloists, but ensembles are kind of my wheelhouse, and one of the things I love about ensembles is that it is a team that is not necessarily competing against anyone except kind of ourselves.

鈥淵es, there are ensembles that go and compete and do competitions, but primarily, a choir or a band or that kind of an ensemble is truly bigger than the sum of its parts in the sense that we all have to come together to create something that鈥檚 better than any of us individually could do. We can鈥檛 do it without everyone. ...

鈥淔or me, choral music, when you take music that has multiple parts to it and then you put words to it, vocal and the voice, there鈥檚 something special about the spoken word and the sung word that I think ... communicates beyond what words can communicate. It allows us to communicate further than text. I have seen a grown man cry in the middle of a choral piece. Somebody who would never do that, right?

鈥淚t also brings together widely diverse people.鈥�

What about Spero Chamber Chorale?

鈥淲hen I did the Spero choir this summer, part of the reason that I started that group was the past year or two ... just in the world it feels people are angry. People are argumentative with each other. There鈥檚 a lot of problems in the world that seem insurmountable, and as a musician, sometimes I feel like I should have been a scientist. I should have been a politician. Am I really making a solid difference in the world, a tangible difference?

鈥淚 have all these music teacher friends around, and they鈥檙e like, 鈥榃e are making a difference. Let鈥檚 make a difference. Let鈥檚 figure out a way to make a difference. What can we do? We can bring hope to the world. We can remind people that there is hope, and then if we work together, if we come together, we can create beauty and truth and all those wonderful things.鈥�

鈥淭hat鈥檚 why the choir was named 鈥楽pero.鈥� 鈥楽pero鈥� means 鈥榟ope鈥� in Latin. It鈥檚 kind of my mantra now that like we as musicians, we are here for a reason, we can make a difference, and we do have something to say to this world that is so angry and so despondent and so depressed. We have something to say, and our message is hope and joy and beauty and love.鈥�

For more information on Spero Chamber Chorale, visit or Facebook.