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Award-winning German Vocal CD Features Composition by Lawrence University’s Joanne Metcalf

Joanne Metcalf won’t receive a funky, little gold statuette for her efforts, but the Lawrence University assistant professor of music says personal satisfaction is its own reward.

Metcalf wrote the main composition on a classical CD by Singer Pur, a German-based sextet that recently won the German Recording Academy’s ECHO Klassik prize for best vocal ensemble performance at an awards ceremony in Munich. The ECHO is considered the most prestigious classical music award in Europe.

Metcalf’s “Il nome del bel fior” (“The Name of that Fair Flower”) is a 25-minute, seven-part vocal composition that was used as the last track on the CD “Rihm, Metcalf, Moody, Sciarino” on the Oehms Classic label. The text of the composition is taken from Dante’s “Paradiso.” The work was performed on the CD by both Singer Pur and London-based The Hilliard Ensemble, one of the world’s premier chamber vocal groups.

“It’s definitely one of the biggest things to ever happen in my life,” Metcalf said of the award. “It’s very gratifying that the CD was recognized and I contributed to it.”

Metcalf, The Hilliard Ensemble and Singer Pur trace their collective roots back a dozen years. In 1994, The Hilliard Ensemble sponsored its first, and because it was overwhelmed with submissions, only international composition competition. Metcalf’s “Music for the Star of the Sea” was named one of the competition’s three winners. Singer Pur was just launching its career at the time and was working with Hilliard Ensemble when Metcalf submitted her winning composition. An ongoing collaboration was instantly born.

Metcalf wrote “Il nome del bel fior” in 1998 and since then, the work has been performed more than 100 times in concerts around the globe.

A member of the Lawrence Conservatory of Music faculty since 2001, Metcalf’s work as a composer has been widely recognized. She earned first-prize honors in 1993 from the International League of Women Composers, was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for study at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague that same year and more recently earned the Aaron Copland Award from the Copland Heritage Association in 2000.

She earned a Ph.D. in music composition from Duke University.

Timeless Classics Featured in Lawrence Academy of Music Girl Choir Concert

More than 250 voices will lend their talents to music that has stood the test of the time — from lullabies to spirituals — in the Lawrence University Academy of Music’s Girl Choir concert “Choral Classics” Saturday, Dec. 10 in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave., Appleton.

For the first time in the girl choir’s 15-year history, the concert will be performed twice on the same day, at 2 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Tickets, at $10 for adults, $7 for seniors and students, are available at the Lawrence Box Office, 920-832-6749.

The concert will feature performances by five separate choirs — Primo, Allegretto, Intermezzo, Cantabile and Bel Canto — under the direction of Molly Tomashek, Cheryl Meyer and Karen Bruno. Members of the choirs, selected by audition, include girls 8-18 years of age representing more than 50 schools from throughout northeast Wisconsin.

Selections to be performed include Handel’s “Give Thanks and Praise,” the Scottish folk song “The Raggle-Taggle Gypsies,” Schubert’s “Benedictus” and Gustav Holst’s “Ave Maria,” which is widely considered a masterpiece among women’s choir literature.

“The repertoire that will be performed in this concert is exceptionally varied,” said Karen Bruno, artistic coordinator of the girl choir program. “We will feature European ‘art music’ from as early as the 16th century, as well as more contemporary American choral compositions and folk songs from several foreign countries.

“We try to make our programs as accessible as possible, so no one should worry about being intimated by this type of musical literature,” Bruno added. “There will be extensive program notes with helpful information and lots of interesting facts.”

Founded in 1991, the Lawrence Academy of Music Girl Choir program provides quality choral opportunities for girls in the greater Fox Valley area and encourages the development of vocal technique, music reading skills, creativity, expressive artistry and an awareness of various cultures.

Four Lawrence Academy of Music Ensembles Showcased in Pair of Concerts

Nearly 200 young musicians representing four ensembles from the Lawrence University Academy of Music will showcase their talents Sunday, Dec. 4 in a pair of concerts at the Lawrence Memorial Chapel.

The string orchestra and the flute choir will take the stage in a 3 p.m. concert, while the honors band and wind ensemble will perform in a 7 p.m. concert. Tickets for each concert are $6 and can be purchased at the Lawrence Box Office, 832-6749 or at the door the day of the event.

The 63-member string orchestra, featuring students in grades 4-8 under the direction of Linda Callahan, will perform a program with appeal to youngsters as well as the young at heart. Highlighting the concert will be two works arranged by Appleton elementary and middle level strings teacher Carrie Gruselle — “Postcards from Russia” and “John Henry.”

The flute choir concert will include works by Handel, Beethoven, Brahms and conclude with a rendition of Ricky Lombardo’s stirring arrangement of “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” The 13-member ensemble comprised of students in grades 8-12 features several different types of flutes, including bass flute and alto flute. Barb Boren, flute choir coach and Lawrence sophomore Katie Buchanan will co-direct the ensemble.

In the evening concert, the honors band will pay tribute to Ralph Rothe. A 1949 Lawrence graduate, Rothe spent more than 30 years as band director in the Appleton school district. Following his death earlier this year, he bequeathed to Lawrence and the Academy his entire collection of 1,600 band arrangements, music that spans nearly the entire 20th century.

The 57-member band of seventh, eighth and ninth graders, will perform four pieces from Rothe’s collection, including Grant Hull’s “European Folk Tune Suite,” which features a Russian dance, a Polish lullaby and a Spanish dance.

The honors band also will premiere an arrangement by Jon Meyer, the ensemble’s director, of A.F. Weldon’s 1914 March, “Gate City,” an eclectic collection of Southern tunes ranging from Stephen Foster to “Dixie” written to honor Atlanta, once known for its large number of gated yards.

Closing out the evening concert will be a performance of the 62-member Academy Wind Ensemble under the direction of Michael Ross. The ensemble features advanced woodwind, brass and percussion students in grades 9-12.

Highlighting the concert will be a pair of solo performances by guest artist Marty Erickson, a former principal/solo tubist for 26 years with the United States Navy Band in Washington D.C. Heard on more than 40 recordings of orchestra, concert band, brass band, dixieland jazz, folk and children’s music, Erickson has performed in 48 of the 50 states, throughout Europe as well as in Japan and Cuba. He has played with such legendary ensembles as the Boston Pops Orchestra, the National Symphony and the Smithsonian Masterworks Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Gunther Schuller.

Erickson currently teaches tuba and euphonium in the Lawrence Conservatory of Music. During the concert, he will perform Rossini’s “Largo al Factotum” and “Concertino for Tuba” by Rolf Wilhelm.

Magnificent “Magnificat” Gets Triple Treatment in Lawrence University Holiday Choral Concert

Johann Sebastian Bach’s famed “Magnificat,” with its spectacular opening chorus, will be one of three different versions of the biblical Canticle of Mary performed by a trio of Lawrence University choirs and the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra in the holiday concert “A Bach Family Christmas.”

The concert, featuring three conductors and guest soloist Chad Freeburg, a 1999 Lawrence graduate, will be performed Friday, Dec. 2 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel, 510 E. College Ave., Appleton. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors/students (free to LU students, faculty and staff) and are available at the Lawrence Box Office, 920-832-6749.

The 46-member Lawrence Concert Choir and the symphony orchestra will open the concert with a performance of Carl Phillip Emanuel Bach’s 1749 version of the “Magnificat” conducted by David Becker, director of orchestral studies. C.P.E. Bach, the second-oldest surviving son of Johann Sebastian Bach, wrote his version of the “Magnificat” in 1749 in Berlin while serving an appointment as chamber musician to Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. It will be the latest of the three versions that will be performed during the concert.

The Lawrence Women’s Choir, under the direction of Phillip Swan, associate director of choral studies and accompanied by the string orchestra, will sing Italian baroque composer Nicholai Porpora’s “Magnificat.” Porpora, who collaborated with J.S. Bach’s youngest son, Johann Christian Bach in England, wrote his “Magnificat” for the famous all-girl choirs of the Venice “ospedali” — charitable orphanage-conservatories that provided musical training for orphaned, abandoned and illegitimate children of the city. The four ospedalis in Venice attracted many of Europe’s greatest composers of the time.

The concert finale, conducted by Richard Bjella, director of choral studies, will combine more than 180 voices and the symphony orchestra as the Lawrence Chorale joins the concert choir and women’s choir on stage in a performance of J.S. Bach’s 1732 D major version of the “Magnificat.” Bach’s first “Magnificat,” in E flat, was originally written to be first performed at Vespers on Christmas Day 1723 at the Church of St Nicholas in Lepizig along with four Christmas interludes in German.

“Even though they each use the same words, the text in each version is displayed quite differently,” said Bjella. “These remarkable works encompass much of the ‘best of’ from each composer. In a span of 30 minutes, J.S. Bach’s version explores many very dramatic, romantic and ancient music traditions. And the C.P.E. Bach ‘Magnificat’ may have the most incredible soprano solo written during the 18th century. I think this will be an absolutely breath-taking concert.”

Freeburg, a 2001 national semifinalist in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, returns to his alma mater as the concert’s featured soloist.

A tenor currently living in New York City, Freeburg has established himself as an accomplished singer of both opera and concert literature. Count Almaviva of “The Barber of Seville” has become a signature role for Freeburg, who has performed it with Opera Roanoke, Opera Delaware and Washington Summer Opera. He also will reprise the role in upcoming appearances with Utah Opera, Austin Lyric Opera and Lyric Opera of San Antonio.

Already in his young career Freeburg has performed with the American Ballet Theater at the Metropolitan Opera, the National Chorale at New York’s Lincoln Center, the Portland Symphony Pops, the Indianapolis Symphony and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, among others. He has performed “Diary of One Who Vanished” with pianist Richard Goode at the Marlboro Music Festival and sang as tenor soloist for “Bach Weekend” under the baton of Blanche Moyse.

“Magnificat” is the title commonly given to the Latin text and translation of the Canticle of Mary taken from the Gospel of St. Luke.

Internationally Acclaimed Composer Samuel Adler Conducts Guest Residency at Lawrence University

At the age of 25, Samuel Adler wrote the first of his six symphonies. It was a harbinger of what was to become a highly distinguished five-decade career that has produced a prodigious body of work encompassing more than 400 published compositions, including five operas and three books.

The internationally acclaimed composer and author will be Appleton Nov. 15-20 to participate in a guest residency in the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music that will include a pair of concerts featuring some of his work.

In addition to working with students, as part of his residency Adler will discuss his prolific 50-year career in a free public address Nov. 17 at 1 p.m. in Harper Hall of the Music-Drama Center.

A New Music Concert Friday, Nov. 18 at 8 p.m. in Harper Hall will feature student soloists and ensembles as well as the five-member Lawrence Brass performing several Adler compositions, including 1997’s “Brahmsiana” and 1999’s “Be Not Afraid: The Isle is Full of Noises.”

Adler will serve as guest conductor of the Lawrence Wind Ensemble and Symphonic Band in a concert Saturday, Nov. 19 at 8 p.m. in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Both the Friday and Saturday concerts are free and open to the public.

Highlighting Saturday’s evening program will be performances of Adler’s “To Celebrate a Miracle” featuring Hannukah selections and “Pygamalion,” a recent and energetic work composed for the Southern Methodist University Wind Ensemble.

“Many musicians have lengthy and impressive resumés, but the breadth, depth and variety of Samuel Adler’s seems peerless to me,” said Andrew Mast, assistant professor of music and Lawrence’s director of bands. “Not only is the volume of his work, with more than 400 published compositions, staggering, but he’s written for virtually every conceivable musical medium. And he’s still composing at 77 years of age.

“To have someone of Adler’s experience, accomplishments and stature come to Lawrence will be invigorating for the entire campus,” Mast added. “And for all he’s accomplished, he has been steadfast in his desire to work with as many students as possible while he’s here, which clearly demonstrates his commitment to teaching and passing his knowledge on to the next generation.”

Born in Germany, Adler immigrated to the United States when he was 11 to escape the Nazi regime. He studied at Boston University and Harvard University and worked with famed American composer Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. He wrote the first of his six symphonies four years before joining the faculty of the University of North Texas as a professor of composition in 1957.

Adler later spent 29 years teaching at Eastman School of Music, serving as chair of the composition department there from 1974 unitil his retirement in 1995. Since 1997, Adler has been a member of the composition faculty at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City.

During his career, Adler has given master classes and workshops at more than 300 universities around the world and has taught at virtually every major music festival in this country and abroad.

His compositions have been commissioned by the National Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, the American Brass Quintet, the Berlin-Bochum Brass Ensemble and the American String Quartet, among others, and his works have been performed by many of the finest orchestras in the world, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Mannheim Nationaltheater Orchestra.

Inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001, Adler’s life work has been widely recognized with numerous awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, “Composer of the Year” honors by the American Guild of Organists and election to the Chilean Academy of Fine Arts for “his outstanding contribution to the world of music as a composer.”

While in the Army in the early 1950s, Adler founded and conducted the Seventh Army Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra’s psychological and musical impact on European culture under his direction earned Adler the army’s Medal of Honor.

In addition to his music, Adler is the author of the books “Choral Conducting” (1971), “Sight Singing” (1977) and “The Study of Orchestration” (1982).

Lawrence Conservatory, Academy Musicians Place in State Cello Competition

Appleton student cellists Stephanie Smith and Joe Loehnis placed second and third, respectively, at the Wisconsin Cello Society competition conducted Nov. 6 at UW- Stevens Point.

Smith, a home-schooled 11th grader and a student at the Lawrence Academy of Music, and Loehnis, a Lawrence University senior, both study in the cello studio of Lawrence professor of music Janet Anthony.

Students in the competition performed 15-20 minutes of music of their own choosing. Smith played the first movement of the Shostakovich first concerto, op. 107 and Paganini’s “Variations on one String,” while Loehnis performed the first two movements of the “Cassado Suite for solo cello” and “Lo how a Rose” by Mark Summer, cellist of the Turtle Island quartet.

Monique Ross, a student at the String Academy of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, won the competition, which was open to all Wisconsin students aged 14-22 who have studied privately for more than one year. This year’s competition, the Wisconsin Cello Society’s first, featured 11 cellists from around the state.

Founded in April, 2000, the Wisconsin Cello Society is a state-wide organization that promotes the art and appreciation of cello playing, furthers the musical development of its members and provides performance opportunities for professional, amateur and student cellists.

Dochnahl, Pieper, Share 2005 Lawrence Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition Title

Senior saxophonist Jesse Dochnahl and freshman pianist Jesse Pieper were named co-winners of the 12th annual Lawrence University Symphony Orchestra concerto competition. They each will perform as soloists in upcoming concerts.

Pieper, a student of assistant professor Dmitri Novgorodsky, will play Prokofiev’s “Piano Concerto #1” during the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra’s Jan. 28, 2006 concert. He is the first freshman in the history of the LSO concerto competition to win it.

Dochnahl, who studies in the studio of professor Steve Jordheim, will be the featured soloist in the March 10, 2006 LSO concert, performing “Scaramouche: Suite for Saxophone and Orchestra” by Darius Milhaud. In April, Dochnahl earned first-prize honors in the national finals of the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Woodwind Young Artists competition held in Seattle, Wash.

Pieper, Fond du Lac, and Dochnal, Ennis, Mont., were chosen as this year’s winners from a field of 12 finalists. Lawrence conservatory faculty members serve as judges for the competition. Each finalists is required to memorize a full concerto and then play up to 15 minutes worth from memory any part or parts of the concerto chosen by the judges.

The Lawrence concerto competition was started in 1994 to give students the opportunity to perform a full-length work with the Lawrence Symphony Orchestra.

Famous British Transsexual Divorce Trial Focus of Lawrence University Address

April Ashley was a British supermodel and fashion icon in the 1950s and ‘60s. And when she announced her marriage to Arthur Corbett, the heir of Lord Rowallen, she also became Great Britain’s most famous transsexual.

Dan O’Connor, a lecturer in the University of Wisconsin’s department of medical history and bioethics, explores the gaps between the medical and legal definitions of sex and the popular cultural signs of gender in the Lawrence University address “‘Wife a Man’: The April Ashley Divorce Trial and the Definition of Sex in Postwar Britain.”

O’Connor’s presentation, Wednesday, Nov. 16 at 4:15 p.m. in Lawrence’s Science Hall, Room 102, is free and open to the public.

A one-time member of the British merchant navy, Ashley spent two years as a showgirl at the Carousel, Paris’ famous female impersonator nightclub before undergoing sex reassignment surgery in 1960. Three years later in Gibraltar, she married Corbett, a transvestite and likely a homosexual, who was well aware of the facts of Ashley’s gender. Their marriage was never consummated, leading to a landmark court battle.

In a 1969 trial — the first case in which an English court has been called upon to decide the sex of an individual — the judge rules ‘wife a man’ on the grounds that although Ashley had a sex change operation, she was, by three biological criteria, a male “at birth” and the marriage was annulled.

The ruling was subsequently applied beyond the scope of marriage to deny transsexual British citizens basic civil rights and left them unable to legally change their sex in the UK until 2003 when it was repealed.

O’Connor is teaching at UW as a visiting research fellow from the Centre for the History of Medicine at the University of Warwick in England. He is currently completing his Ph.D. dissertation “Sex Signs: Transsexuality, Writing and the Languages of Male and Female in Britain and the U.S., 1950-2000.”

Lawrence University Students Earns Seven Firsts at State Singing Competition

With her fourth consecutive state title, Alisa Jordheim was one of seven Lawrence University students who earned first-place honors at the 2005 Wisconsin chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) competition held Nov. 4-5 at Viterbo College in La Crosse.

Lawrence students dominated the annual state competition, winning seven of 11 divisions with 21 students advancing to the finals.

Jordheim, a student in the voice studio of KrisAnne Weiss, ’97, was awarded first-place honors in the college sophomore women division. She won the college freshman women division last year and girls’ high school categories in 2003 and 2002.

Patrick Ireland, Appleton, earned his third NATS title, winning the men’s upper college musical theatre division, while Matthew Vitti, New Caanan, Conn., a 2003 NATS winner, won the senior men division. Ireland, a 2001 and 2003 NATS winner, and Vitti are both students of professor of music Ken Bozeman.

Other first-place Lawrence finishers included Lacey Benter, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the freshman women division; Alex Tyink, Appleton, in the freshman men division; Andrew Lovato, Waukesha, in the sophomore men division; and Becca Young, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the senior women division.

Tyink, Lovato, and Young are also students of Ken Bozeman, while Benter studies in the voice studio of Joanne Bozeman. First-place finishers were awarded $100 for their winning efforts.

A total of 39 Lawrence students and one student from the Lawrence Academy of Music participated in this year’s competition. In addition to the seven first-place winners, five students earned second-place honors: Emily Shankman (freshman women), Garth Neustadter (freshman men); Emily Fink (sophomore women); Scott Sandersfeld (senior men); and Brad Grimmer (men’s upper college music theatre).

The 2005 NATS competition featured 417 singers from colleges and high schools throughout Wisconsin. Depending upon the category, competitors are required to sing two, three or four classical pieces from different time periods with at least one selection sung in a foreign language.

Rob Engelhart, associate professor of music at Northern Michigan University, Susan Jones, vocal/opera/choral program coordinator at the University of Iowa and Larry Weller, professor of music at the University of Minnesota, served as guest judges for the competition.

Lawrence University Hosts African-Jamaican Dinner Nov. 13

Lawrence University’s international student organization will host an African-Jamaican dinner Sunday, Nov. 13 at 6 p.m. in Lucinda’s in Colman Hall, 212 S. Durkee St. Tickets, at $7 per person, can be reserved by calling 832-6509. Seating is limited to 200.

The two-continent cuisine will feature West African peanut pork, Jamaican curried chicken, African yellow raisin rice, West African greens, Mafe (a Senegalese stew made from ground peanuts and sweet potatoes), tropical fruit salad, banana cake with banana sauce and Jamaican fruit punch. The dinner also will include an exhibition of cultural items and traditional music from both areas.

Lawrence International is a student organization of nearly 100 active members representing more than 50 foreign countries.