New Classic Singers will open its 28th concert season as a professional choral ensemble with Ein Deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms. on Saturday, November 7th at 8 p.m. at St Petronille Church, 420 Glenwood Avenue, in Glen Ellyn. The concert will be repeated at St Francis Xavier Church, 124 N Spring Ave, in La Grange at 3 p.m. on Sunday, November 8^th.

Brahms’ German Requiem is one of the most beloved and revered works off all choral music. Rather than a formal religious service for the dead, Brahms chose a variety of texts to comfort the bereaved. It is a work of great beauty and comfort. NCS will sing Brahms’ own version for piano 4-hands, featuring guest pianist William Koehler and resident accompanist William Buhr.

New Classic Singers is a 40 voice professional choral ensemble in residence at the McAninch Arts Center at College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The ensemble is known for its imaginative programs of the very finest choral literature. Members are professional singers, choral directors, music teachers from Chicago's western suburbs and beyond. Lee Kesselman is Founder and Music Director of New Classic Singers. He has been Director of Choral Activities at College of DuPage since 1981.

William Buhr appears throughout North America as an accompanist, chamber musician and clinician. Widely sought as a performer, he has appeared in numerous international festivals and has accompanied the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Chorus at the invitation of director Margaret Hillis. Mr. Buhr is a member of the music faculty at College of DuPage and is the long-standing principal accompanist of the Anima Young Singers, formerly Glen Ellyn Children’s Chorus. This season is Mr. Buhr’s 24th with New Classic Singers.

William Koehler has taught piano at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb since 1985. A recipient of a 2001 Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching Award from NIU, he was named a Presidential Teaching Professor in 2005. He has recorded for Cedille Records, Canti Classics, and Centaur Records as a collaborative pianist, and has performed with the Vermeer, Arianna, and Prague string quartets and the Craftsbury Chamber Players. Since 1991, he has been pianist for the Midsummer’s Music chamber ensemble in Door County, Wisconsin.

His competition awards include first prizes in the 1984 San Antonio International Keyboard Competition and the 1989 New Orleans International Piano Competition. From 1988 to 1990, Mr. Koehler was an Affiliate Artists Xerox Pianist. Koehler is a past president of the Waubonsee Valley chapter of the Illinois State Music Teachers Association and is the pianist for DeKalb’s First United Methodist Church.