Final Distinguished Artist Series Concert Scheduled for March 3

by Richard Veit

The final concert of the Baylor University School of Music 1997-98 Distinguished Artist Series will feature baritone William McGraw, a Baylor graduate who performs in concerts nationwide and teaches at the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music. The performance will take place at 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 3, in Roxy Grove Hall. McGraw will be accompanied by pianist Donna Loewy. Their program, titled "Atlantic Crossing," consists of words set to the songs by British novelist and poet Emily Brontë as well as American poet Walt Whitman.
The concert opens with John Duke's "Five Songs on Poems of Emily Brontë" ("Love and Friendship," "Remembrance," "On the Moors," "The Old Stoic" and "Worlds of Light").
Ned Rorem's setting of "War Scenes" depicts the brutality and carnage of America's Civil War, as seen through the eyes of Walt Whitman. The five poems from this collection that McGraw will present are "A Night Battle," "Specimen Case," "An Incident," "Inauguration Ball" and "The Real War Will Never Get in the Books."
The other Whitman group on the program is "I Was There," five poems set to music by Lee Hoiby. The songs are "Beginning My Studies," the title song "I Was There," "A Clear Midnight," "O Captain! My Captain!" and "Joy, Shipmate, Joy!"
The program also will include "Five Songs by Black American Composers," musical settings of texts by African-American poets: "Genius Child" by Robert Owens (to words by Langston Hughes), "The Barrier" by Charles Brown (to words by Claude McKay), "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Howard Swanson (to words by Langston Hughes), "Riding to Town" by Thomas H. Kerr Jr. (to words by Paul Lawrence Dunbar) and "Love, Let the Wind Cry...How I Adore Thee!" by Undine Smith Moore (to words by the ancient Greek poetess Sappho).
General admission tickets for this concert are $10, and students, Baylor faculty and staff, and senior citizens will be admitted for $6. For more information, call the Baylor School of Music at 710-3991.