[086] MTSU, community voices unite for Mozart’s haunting ‘Requiem’ Sept. 20

MURFREESBORO — Area music lovers have a rare opportunity Sunday, Sept. 20, to hear Mozart’s harrowing, hauntingly beautiful final work performed by some of Middle Tennessee’s finest musicians and their special guests.

The MTSU Schola Cantorum and Middle Tennessee Choral Society will perform Mozart’s “Requiem in D Minor” beginning at 3 p.m. Sept. 20 in MTSU’s Hinton Hall, located inside the Wright Music Building. Tickets are $10 per person, and a searchable campus parking map is available at http://tinyurl.com/MTSUParking2015-16.

This MTSU Arts production of the Requiem, left unfinished at Mozart’s untimely death in 1791 and completed by another composer a year later, will showcase a 100-voice MTSU choir and a 35-piece MTSU orchestra.

The Schola Cantorum comprises MTSU’s best upper-division vocal majors and graduate students, while the internationally recognized Choral Society includes top student vocalists alongside outstanding singers from the surrounding community.

The choral groups also are welcoming four guest soloists for this special production:

·       soprano Alice Matlock Clements, an MTSU music alumna and local voice teacher.

·       alto Mareike Sattler, a senior lecturer in anthropology at Vanderbilt University. 

·       tenor Stephen Smith, a vocal music professor at MTSU.

·       bass John Kramar, a voice professor at East Carolina University School of Music in Greenville, North Carolina.

You can get a preview of the talented voices included in this upcoming concert by listening to the Schola Cantorum’s performance of the “Cantate Domino” at http://youtu.be/yhADDd4pZMM.

“We are very pleased to present this timeless masterpiece as our concert season opener,” said Dr. Raphael Bundage, a professor of vocal performance in MTSU's School of Music and Choral Society music director/conductor.

This Sept. 20 event launches another busy 2015-16 season for the Middle Tennessee Choral Society, which has adopted “Love, Peace and Joy” as this year’s theme.

The annual performance of Handel’s “Messiah,” set Monday, Nov. 30, marks the 31st anniversary of the group’s presentation of the beloved holiday oratorio.

“Messiah” will be presented at 7 p.m. Nov. 30 at First United Methodist Church, located at 265 W. Thompson Lane. Tickets for that concert, which also will feature a professional orchestra and MTSU student and faculty soloists, also are $10 per person.

On Feb. 21, the MTSU Concert Chorale and Middle Tennessee Choral Society will present “Songs of Love and Joy: From Opera to Broadway,” featuring music from George Gershwin, Cole Porter and Giacomo Puccini.

For more information on these and other concerts in the MTSU School of Music, call 615-898-2493 or visit http://www.mtsumusic.com and click on the "Concert Calendar" link.

For details on joining the Middle Tennessee Choral Society, contact Bundage at raphael.bundage@mtsu.edu or 615-898-2849.