Sunday Concert: Blue Skies

How about a little college choral music this Sunday. Last week Sheila and I attended the annual Feast of Caroles performed by Shorter College choral students. The college Chorus under the direction of Matthew Hoch; their guests, the Ridgeland High School Chorus directed by Anthoney Goss; Shorter's wonderful a cappella men's group, Something Else; and the creme de la creme, The Shorter Chorale under Martha Shaw presented a wonderful assortment of sacred and secular Christmas music. We bought copies of the Chorale's CD for ourselves and my mother. It includes a solo by Shorter's alumna and Metropolitan Opera Grand Prize winner Jamie Barton.

Anyway, that put me in a mood for some choral music. It's not Shorter College, but here's a little something I happened on at YouTube. YouTube doesn't give much information. I think it is a convention of college level barbarshop quartets.

Jamie Barton - Wow!

Photo Courtesy of Indiana University.
Copyright Holder: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.

Jamie Barton, our Armuchee girl, has made it bigtime in opera this year. We have known Jamie since she was a young teen. She is one of the finest, most unassuming kids ever - unbelievable pipes but definitely not the stereotypical prima donna. Today NPR broadcast the finals of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Jamie's two arias were outstanding, as I knew they would be. She sang the witch's aria from Hansel und Gretel with great skill and humor. And our local kid was one of six Grand Prize winners! Congratulations, Jamie!

Here is her journal of the competition from the Indiana University website.
Here is the story of her win from the same website.

College Town

Rome, Georgia - my hometown - is a college town. We have Shorter College, Berry College, Georgia Highlands College, and a technical school now known as Coosa Valley Technical College.

It is a crying shame that Sheila and I have lived here since 1971, and have only been regularly taking advantage of the cultural events at the colleges for the last few of those years. A favorite activity for me is attending the "Senior Shows" of the musical theater students at Shorter College.

Tonight, after a stop at the new Starbucks for overpriced coffee and pastries, we saw one of the most entertaining senior shows I have seen -- though Brannon's is still the all-time best in my humble, biased, and correct opinion. Meagan Lewis is a sweetheart and a friend of our daughter's. Justin McGough has performed with Brannon several times and was a fellow cast member of "The Civil War" with me last year. Courtney Foster also shared a stage with Brannon.

Meagan, Justin, and Courtney put together a well-crafted, quick-paced, thoroughly entertaining show. It was often hilariously funny, occasionally achingly romantic, once or twice steamily exotic, sometimes intricately staged and choreographed, sometimes intimately simple. Meagan wowed the audience with a long medley of Disney Tunes ranging from the lovely "Candle on the Water" to the raucous "Poor Unfortunate Soul". Later she had us laughing out loud at "Alto's Lament." Justin dedicated a beautiful love song to his girlfriend and captured the exquisite passion of Snoopy (Charlie Brown's beagle) in "Suppertime". Courtney had a ball with the elaborately choreographed "Show Off". Those are only a few of 22 excellent numbers.

Tomorrow evening and next Tuesday we will return to Shorter's Callaway Theater to see other Senior Shows of young folks we have come to love and admire.