College co-sponsors local
music festival
The sacred music program and the Region
II Summer Conference of the Association of Lutheran Church Musicians will
co-sponsor a music festival at 7:30 p.m. June 27. The festival, which will
feature organ and choral music, anthems and congregational hymns, will be held
at First Baptist Church of Hickory. The program is free and the public is
invited.
Program highlights include three major organ works performed by Florence Jowers,
associate professor of music. Selections include "What God Ordains is
Always Good," an arrangement by Gerald Near of two movements of Bach
Cantata 100; "Variations for the Organ" by Dudley Buck, based on
Stephen Foster's "Old Folks at Home"; and a two-part work titled
"In Mystery and Wonder," composed by Wake Forest University professor
of music and composer-in-residence Dan Locklear.
Dr. Robert Hawkins, professor of worship and music at Lutheran Theological
Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C., will lead the audience in three hymn
arrangements, two from the early days of the Lutheran Reformation. Hawkins has
created a new melody for one of Martin Luther's earliest hymns and will
demonstrate early congregational singing style.
Also featured will be the Lenoir-Rhyne Youth Chorus under the direction of
founder/conductor Jowers and accompanied by Freda Herrell and Robert Smith. The
chorus will perform David Brunner's "Jubilate Deo," Bach's "We
hasten with eager yet faltering footsteps," and Mozart's "Alleluia
Canon" and "Kyrie." Other pieces include "The Lamb," by
Lutheran composer Michael Burkhardt; "The Lord Reigns" and
"Erin's Canon," by Dr. Paul Weber, director of the sacred music
program and choral activities for the college; and "Go Where I Send
Thee," a spiritual arranged by Caldwell and Ivory.
The final part of the program will feature the conference Festival Choir
directed by Marguerite Brooks, associate professor of choral conducting and
chair of the program in choral conducting at the Yale University School of Music
and Institute of Sacred Music. The Youth Chorus, Festival Choir and the audience
will join together to sing Weber's arrangement of "A Mighty Fortress."
The Conference Choir will close the program with two anthems of peace: "O
Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem," by 20th century English composer Herbert
Howells, and "Dona nobis pacem," the final movement of the Mass in B
Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.
For more information about the program, call 828-328-7149.