The Penn State Chamber Singers are known around campus for the beautiful harmonies they produce semester after semester at their concerts.

At this semester's concert, which will take place 4 p.m. Sunday in Esber Recital Hall, they will impress the audience on an entirely new level: They will sing most of their pieces in French, a language with which many of the singers weren't extremely familiar.

"We're singing nine songs in French and some of them have never experienced that before," director Christopher Kiver said.

The concert is made up of 12 short pieces and will last about 30 minutes.

The French selections are from renowned composers Claude Debussy and Paul Hindemith.

"It's not all that often that you hear choirs singing French music, so that will be interesting to hear," Kiver said.

In addition, the singers will perform songs from Gerald Finzi that have "gorgeous, really colorful texts that he set to music," Kiver said.

The concert will close with an arrangement of an American folk song, "Cindy," in which the singers will be accompanied by professor Tom Cody on guitar.

Kiver made his song selections based on two main factors.

"One of the priorities I have is, 'What are the pieces the students must have in their collegiate repertoire?' " he said. "What I try to do is pick music by significant composers. Another secondary thought is, 'What pieces are appealing to the audience to hear?' "

There will be four soloists featured in the three Debussy pieces.

Students had to audition for the opportunity to sing alone. Jordan Barrett (freshman-voice performance) was one of the singers selected to perform solo.

"I really like the pieces and I thought it was a good opportunity to have a solo. It's one of my favorite composers," Barrett said.

Becoming familiar with the French language was a large part of the preparation for the students.

"Even though I'm semi-familiar with the language, we're doing nine pieces in French, so getting all the words to come out just right is very difficult," soloist Chad Reed (junior-music education) said.

Soloist Teal Ruland (freshman-voice performance) also had to put in a lot of work and rehearsal time to get the new language down.

"French is definitely a challenge for me. I've been listening to the recording and I just practice saying it out loud as much as I could," she said.