Opinion of choral music

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I've pretty much involved with a choir (sometimes more than one) since I was in 4th grade.  I've been baritone, 2nd and 1st tenor though my ideal range is 2nd tenor.

I prefer mens choirs because of the rich overtones, but of course mixed and treble choirs can be amazing.

I bring this up because I found a CD of my sophomore year at Saint John's University where the Men's choir sang the mass with organ accompaniment.. it's very dark, very traditional, very Catholic.

Then we joined with the Women's choir and the mixed choir and the St. Cloud community orchestra and a guy that composed the mass with strong gospel/soul influence from his black southern upbringing.

It shows that sometimes church isn't boring at all.  The composer played the piano for the concert that we did in St. John's Abbey Church to honor the Abbot after decades of service to the monastery.

It was also cool because the university also had a boys choir, and we join with them at Christmas in the old church with a massive Christmas tree where the alter was.. it was a special experience.
Do you like choral music?

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I really like Eric Whitacre.. some of his stuff is bone chilling.  There isn't much music out there that can truly make you shiver... his stuff does it for me... especially water night

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Here's a really good recording of Water Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pg0tuah-VA

And here's a really haunting song from an Australian composer.  My senior year of high school we did this at our last concert... I got to do some of the overtones at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNvbg4dKNM

Listen carefully.. you can hear overtones throughout the song... this is an impeccable performance of the song.  The overtones are the fluty sounding noises that sound like they're higher than anything the rest of the choir is singing.  Buddhist monks do it a lot.