FARMINGTON – The Visual and Performing Arts Department at the University of Maine at Farmington invites new members to join the UMF Community Chorus, UMF Community Orchestra and the UMF Concert Band for the spring semester.

All three ensembles are starting rehearsals and encourage singers and instrumentalists to join now as the groups begin work on new programs to be performed in the spring.

The Community Chorus, open to all singers, rehearses from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Mondays in Nordica Auditorium, Merrill Hall, starting Jan. 28.

The chorus, conducted by Bruce McInnes, will start work on Beethoven’s “Mass in C Major.” The work will be performed in May, conducted by McInnes and accompanied by a full orchestra.

McInnes directs the Mastersingers USA, a men’s chorus of alumni from Amherst College, Yale, Pacific University and the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, as well as from his choirs at Grace Church in New York.

McInnes has also conducted choirs at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence, Rutgers and Columbia. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the Université de Paris, where he studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen, Pierre Cochereau and Darius Milhaud.

He holds an undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College and completed his graduate studies at Yale. He has been a professor at Amherst, Pacific, Wisconsin, and Sarah Lawrence, and more recently served as dean of the conservatory at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The UMF Community Orchestra rehearses from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Wednesdays in Nordica. Sessions started Jan. 23.

This semester, the program will include the Bruch violin concerto featuring Sarah Geller as soloist, Beethoven’s “Symphony No. 8” and the premiere of a set of four songs for soprano and orchestra on poems by Wesley McNair, written by USM professor of music Nancy Gunn (sister of UMF’s Dan Gunn). The program, conducted by Trond Saeverud, will be performed in April.

Saeverud, violinist and conductor, has performed as soloist with major orchestras in Europe and in the U.S., including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center in New York City.

He has produced solo CDs on the Simax, Grappa and BIS labels as soloist with Danish and Norwegian orchestras. His recital CD “HIKA” was chosen as “Strad Selection” in the May 2002 issue of Strad Magazine.

He is concertmaster of the Bangor Symphony, first violin in the Nor’easter String Quartet, artistic director of the Harald Saeverud Chamber Music Program and founder and conductor of the new Passamaquoddy Bay Symphony Orchestra with musicians from Canada and the U.S.

The UMF Concert Band, conducted by Anita Jerosch, rehearses from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Thursdays in Nordica. Rehearsals began Jan. 24.

The spring program will include the “Tuba Tiger Rag” by Luther Henderson, selections from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Phantom of the Opera” and other band classics. The UMF Trombone Choir will also begin work on “Because It Was There” by UMF professor Phillip Carlsen, which will be given its Maine premiere at the spring concert in May.

Jerosch is a bass trombonist and euphonium player, is a member of the Bangor Symphony Orchestra and directs the Edith Jones Project, a modern, big band jazz group.

She has performed with the Portland Symphony Orchestra and Maine State Music Theater and has played for Carol Channing, Rita Moreno, Barry Manilow, the Manhattan Transfer and performed at both inaugural balls for President Bill Clinton.

For questions about all the ensembles, contact the UMF Visual and Performing Arts Department at 778-7072.