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LaGrange-based professional octet, STELLARUM, will soon be headed to the United Kingdom for a series of performances at historic venues. Before the group sets off for Europe, they are giving a free preview performance right here in LaGrange.

STELLARUM is an eight-member choral group formed in 2022. The ensemble performs across the Southeast, singing music from a rich legacy of centuries of repertoire. 

The majority of the group hail from the LaGrange community, including founding members, Dr. Richard Prior, Music Director and Conductor for the LaGrange Symphony Orchestra and Minister of Music for Wesley Methodist Church; Elizabeth Arena Whitfield, Director of Music at St. Peter’s Catholic Church; Samantha Cotton, Chorus Director at Callaway High School; and local tenor and Emory voice professor, Jonathan Pilkington.

The group aims to represent LaGrange well in the choral music world, internationally.

STELLARUM will be in residence for a week at the 11th-century Lincoln Cathedral – the United Kingdom’s fourth largest cathedral – with a consortium of singers from the Chancel Choir of Wesley Methodist of LaGrange and Choral Scholars from the U.K.’s University of Nottingham, singing the cathedral’s daily service of Evensong.

The group will also present four independent performances – one in Lincoln Cathedral’s professional concert series and three at other notable venues: the 12th-century Worksop Priory of Our Lady and St. Cuthbert, St. Peter and St. Paul Catholic Church, Lincoln, and the 12th-century Beverley Minster.

Dr. Prior’s connection to England helped bring the group from Georgia to the U.K.

“My background, musical background and training are from England, so having grown up there as a kid, and also as a young adult, I sang in various cathedral choirs. I also directed in a number of cathedrals, so I  still have all of that network over there,” Prior said.

Prior said he and the group are deeply honored to represent LaGrange and the region in this

international opportunity.

Locals not able to make the trip to Europe can hear their free tour preview concert of STELLARUM’S upcoming performances on Sunday, May, 18 at 7 p.m. at First

Presbyterian Church of LaGrange.

“Our concert Sunday, half the program is a preview of things that we’re singing in the concerts, and then the other half is kind of a preview of some of the music we’ll be singing at the Cathedral services,” Prior said.

For more information, visit www.stellarum8voices.com.