Camcorders forum: best camcorder for recording vocal music performances??

I'm hoping someone here can recommend a camcorder for me. I have a teenage daughter who sings, both on the stage in choral and solo concerts, and at home all the time. I need to replace my old Sony (tape) camcorder and finally drag myself into the digital age. I'm obviously not a professional or amateur video buff, and don't pretend to be. Automatic settings are great for me, and I don't need a lot of bells and whistles. But here's what I do care about: A pretty long optical zoom, in case I'm at the back of an auditorium and still want to capture her face; decent low-light capability (picture the same auditorium); excellent audio quality without a lot of motor or wind noise; an external mic input would be nice; decent video image; a price that won't break the bank (high-quality standard def would probably be fine); and I'm leaning towards either hard drive storage and/or flash memory/SD cards. I've looked into the Canon FS200, but some customers on Amazon complained of a whirring noise on playback, and I've looked at some Sonys and JVC Everios, but they don't have the mic jack. All suggestions would be welcome! Oh -- one last thing -- my daughter has a macbook, so it will need to be mac compatible. Thank you, thank you.