Guest organist, soloist to perform with Milligan, Munsey choirs

MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (Oct. 15, 2010) — The Milligan College Concert Choir and the Chancel Choir of Munsey Memorial United Methodist Church in Johnson City, Tenn., will join forces with organist Keith Weber and soprano soloist Whitney Myers in a fall concert on Sunday, Oct. 24, at 7 p.m. at Munsey. The concert is free and open to the public.

The choirs will join Weber as he presents C. Hubert H. Parry’s “I Was Glad” and the cantata “Rejoice in the Lamb” by Benjamin Britten, based on poetry by Christopher Smart. Milligan students Shawna Slemp, Donald Shannon and Timothy Laurio will perform solos in the Britten cantata, along with Munsey member Leanna Baldwin.

Myers, a renowned soprano soloist, will collaborate with Weber on the rarely performed solo cantata, “The Way to Emmaus” by the Czech composer Jaromir Weinberger. Weber will perform the “Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor” of J.S. Bach, “Prelude and Fugue in G minor” by Marcel Dupre’ and the hymn-prelude on “Rhosymedre” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. The Milligan College Concert Choir will open the concert with selections by American composer Lloyd Pfaustch.

Weber is the organist and director of music for the Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas. He is the artistic director of the Grace Note Music Series and regularly collaborates with sopranos Laura Claycomb, Melissa Givens and Ava Pine, mezzo-soprano Natalie Arduino, and baritone David Grogan. He also maintains an ongoing relationship with tenor Vern Sutton, with whom he appeared on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion.” He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, where he was a student of Robert Anderson. He was a winner of the 1991 Region VII National Young Artists’ Playing Competition of the American Guild of Organists and the 1992 Spivey International Organ Competition.

Myers is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. As a frequent recitalist, she has performed in Carnegie Hall, New York, Mirabell Gardens in Austria, Notre Dame Cathedral in France and St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna, Austria. She has sung operatic roles in “Madame Butterfly,” “La Cenerentola,” and “The Marriage of Figaro and Lakme’.” She has recently relocated to Dallas, Texas, where she maintains a private voice studio and will sing in the Dallas Opera production of “Boris Godunov.”

Munsey Memorial United Methodist Church is located at the corner of Roan and Market Streets in downtown Johnson City. For additional information contact the Milligan Music office at 423.461.8723 or music@milligan.edu.

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Posted by on October 15, 2010.