The Canisius College Chorale, under the direction of Frank Scinta, will conclude its 2008 Sacred Spaces concert series with a program in Canisius College’s Montante Cultural Center tonight. The concert will feature works by Vivaldi, Mendelssohn, Buxtehude, Hogan, Dawson and others. Admission is free.

Sacred Spaces stems from an idea the choir proposed five years ago to feature its music in some of Western New York's most beautiful and acoustically resonant environments - namely, the sanctuaries of our area's present and former churches. As a result, the choir has visited nearly twenty-five houses of worship with its repertoire of sacred and secular music spanning five centuries.

Now in its eleventh season, The Canisius College Chorale remains one of Western New York’s most active collegiate music ensembles. Composed of one hundred undergraduate and graduate members, the Chorale regularly presents concert programs to school, church, and community audiences throughout Western New York and Southern Ontario. Its annual Winter and Spring Concerts continue to attract capacity audiences to the Montante Cultural Center at Canisius College. Its repertoire covers more than five centuries of composition and nearly every interpretive style of choral music. In recent years, the Chorale has performed with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (Vivaldi - Gloria in D and Beatus Vir, Buxtehude - Command Thine Angel, Mozart - Coronation Mass, Schubert - Mass in G, Mendelssohn - Lobegesang), the Ars Nova Chamber Musicians (Vivaldi - Psalm 111), the Buffalo Philharmonic Chorus (Faure - Cantique de Jean Racine, Vaughan Williams - O Clap Your Hands), and the Dave Brubeck Quartet (Pange Lingua Variations). In addition, the Chorale has made appearances at Toronto’s St. John Latvian Lutheran Church and Holy Rosary Church. Recipient of a three-year M&T Bank Performance Grant, the Chorale also received Canisius College’s Lee Fassl Award as the outstanding campus organization of 2002. The Chorale will release its fourth CD recording in February, 2009.

Polish Joke, by David Ives opens tonight. A comedy about ethnic identity and the eternal American search for "roots." Jasiu (thirtyish) is a Polish-American who has been taught not to value his own roots, so he decides to make his own roots, reinventing himself first as a sort of non-ethnic everyman, then as an "Irishman." Jasiu's adventures-alternately zany and heartbreaking-take him through a job interview with an Ur-Wasp; to an attempt to become a Catholic priest; to a flower shop where he can't get service because he is weirdly invisible; to a doomed love affair with a Jewish woman; to a wacky Irish travel agency where he has to prove that he is Irish before he can buy a ticket; and to a doctor more interested in ethnic pain than in healing. Jasiu is also bedeviled by a reappearing Polish relative and has to face off with the ghost of a dead Polish patriot. In the end, by trying to get away from his ethnic background, Jasiu finds out who he is and what it means to be "a Pole."