School Of Music To Perform Benefit Concert For Hurricane Victims

Faculty and students of the Baylor University School of Music will join forces on Friday, Sept. 16, to present a gala concert to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Jones Concert Hall, located in the Glennis McCrary Music Building.

To open the program, the Women's Choir, under the direction of Dr. Michele Henry, will sing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Then, following some remarks about local relief efforts by Mary Darden, the music will resume with mezzo-soprano Sarah Daniels and pianist John Elam performing two romantic art songs--"Widmung" by Robert Schumann and "Verborgenheit" by Hugo Wolf.

Operatic music by George Gershwin will come next, as soprano Maria Thomas, bass-baritone Thomas Cannon, and pianist Dr. Andrew Hudson present "Bess, You Is My Woman" from Porgy and Bess.

Gershwin's piano prelude "Andante con moto e poco rubato" will be performed in an arrangement for viola and piano by Blair Williams and Judy Álvarez. Álvarez will also play a work for solo piano, the Variations sérieuses, Op. 54, of Felix Mendelssohn.

Baylor faculty pianist Brian Marks will play Astor Piazzolla's La calambre and Farewell to Stromness by Peter Maxwell Davies.

The program will conclude with organ music by Marcel Dupré, his Prelude and Fugue in G minor, as performed by Monica Harper.

Admission is $5 at the door, and donations will be accepted. For more information, call the Baylor University School of Music at (254) 710-3991.