In February, Dr. Bruce Cox presented a workshop titled “Strategies for Improving Timbre in Young Brass Players” at the South Carolina Music Educators Association conference in Charleston. He also served as guest clinician at band camps in Chandler, Ariz., and Frankfort, Ill.
Dr. Warren and Mrs. Jean Cook traveled to Indianapolis and to Fairfax, Va., for their fifth summer with the Majesty Musicollege, led by BJU grads Ron and Shelley (Garlock) Hamilton. Over 600 delegates from 38 states attended the Musicollege, which helps equip lay people and church staff to serve more effectively in their local churches.
Dr. Seth Custer was named the Music Teachers National Association Distinguished Composer of 2010. In April, Dr. Dan Turner and the Symphonic Wind Band premiered Dr. Custer’s With Voice of Triumph Raised. This work will be performed at the University of North Dakota in October (Dr. Custer will be a guest saxophone soloist at that concert) and at California State University at Bakersfield in November.
Christine Lee attended the Conducting Workshop for Music Educators held at The Juilliard School this summer. Miss Lee was chosen as one of ten fellows for the workshop. Her study included four days of intense study in conducting, ear training, movement, score study and leadership techniques. The workshop faculty included Virginia Allen, Otto-Werner Mueller, David Effron and George Stelluto.
Amanda Barrett directed the Southern Harmony Flute Choir (made up mostly of BJU students) in a performance at the National Flute Convention on August 12. The program consisted of pieces based on Southern folk songs or shape-note hymns and included three pieces from Faye Lopez's new publication for flute choir, Traditional Sacred Tunes for Flute. Mrs. Barrett also co-presented a lecture-recital with Tadeu Coelho at the NFC titled “Discovered in North Carolina: The Charles F. Kurth Manuscript Collection”; and she once again coordinated Tadeu Coelho’s “Inspiration and Praise” flute masterclass.
Dr. Ed Dunbar presented an organ recital at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, N.C., this summer. The program was part of the Summer Organ Recital Series sponsored by the Charlotte Chapter of The American Guild of Organists. The church sanctuary houses two pipe organs: an Aeolian-Skinner of 96 ranks at the front of the church and a Schlicker tracker of 37 ranks in the rear gallery. Both are playable from a five-manual console at the front of the church.
Rob Schoolfield was featured xylophone soloist on two tracks of Textile Tunes, a recently released recording by the Greenville Textile Heritage Band. This year Mr. Schoolfield celebrates the 25th anniversary of the founding of the BJU percussion department.
Dr. Kenon Renfrow recently completed two additional volumes of advanced sacred keyboard arrangements. The collections, to be published by Alfred Music Publishing and SoundForth, will be released in the fall of 2011.
Walk Worthy, a collection of sacred piano arrangements by Mrs. Faye Lopez, was published by Lorenz. Early next year Lorenz will release a second sacred piano collection, The Cross Before Me. Three of Mrs. Lopez’s flute ensemble arrangements from SoundForth's new collection, Traditional Sacred Tunes for Flute, were premiered at the National Flute Convention in Charlotte in August. A second SoundForth flute collection, Be Still My Soul (co-authored with her daughter, Jen Whitcomb), was released for the conference as well.
Dr. Susan Kindall served as official observer of the XVI International Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, Poland. The Chopin competition is among the top three piano competitions in the world. To celebrate the Liszt bicentennial in 2011, Dr. Kindall was invited to participate in the American Liszt Society's Bicentennial Festival at the University of Georgia. Highlights included working with American composer William Bolcom and his wife, soprano Joan Morris (photo); Liszt scholars Alan Walker and William Kinderman; and Metropolitan opera singer Thomas Hampson—who sang the world premiere of Bolcom's Laura Sonnets commissioned for the occasion.
Dr. Dan Forrest had numerous choral compositions premiered this past spring and summer: The High Point University Chorale premiered A Covenant Prayer at Carnegie Hall; the National Children’s Honor Choir premiered his setting of Psalm 8; the Williamsburg (Va.) Choral Guild premiered Two Colonial Folksongs; the Texas Master Chorale and members of the Houston Symphony premiered Te Deum, a major work for choir and orchestra; and the Salt Lake Vocal Artists premiered Entreat Me Not to Leave You at the World Choral Symposium held in Puerto Madryn, Argentina.
Two CDs of Dr. Forrest’s choral music will be released this fall. The Salt Lake Vocal Artists will release a recording of Christmas music, and VOCE (a professional choral group based in Indianapolis) will release a compilation of various premieres over the last several years.
Dr. Michael Moore, head of the music education department, was recently awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the Greenville Metropolitan Arts Council for his work with the Greenville Textile Heritage Band. The period brass band has been featured in many venues across the state and just released its first CD album, Textile Tunes.
This past July Dr. Moore assumed the presidency of the Higher Education Division of the South Carolina Music Educators Association, an elected position he will hold for two years. In addition, Dr. Moore was appointed as editor of the South Carolina Academic Standards for the Visual and Performing Arts Curriculum Support Documents for band and orchestra, published jointly by the South Carolina Department of Education, the Arts in Basic Curriculum Project and the South Carolina Alliance for Arts Education. He continues to serve as the professor of record for the South Carolina Department of Education's annual summer Arts Assessment Institute course, Classroom Assessment in the Arts.