Raleigh to Recognize Artists, Arts Activists, & Arts Supporters
The City of Raleigh’s Medal of Arts program will be given in Fletcher Opera Theater on Wednesday, May 18. This year’s honorees are gallery owner Lee Hansley, for volunteer service; the Hillyer Community Chorus, marking its 35th anniversary this season, for excellence in the performing arts; North Carolina Museum of Art Docents, for volunteer service in the field of visual arts; Jane Elizabeth Williamson Teague, for volunteer service to the community; and Robert Weiss, of the Carolina Ballet, for excellence in the performing arts in the area of dance. The evening’s keynote speaker will be Lawrence J. Wheeler, Director of the North Carolina Museum of Art. The presentation is at 7:00 p.m., with a reception at 6:00 p.m. and post-event coffee and desserts. See our calendar for details.
Residents of Raleigh will be able to see a special production promoting the Medal of Arts program and Raleigh arts on the Raleigh Television Network (on cable: RTN Channel 11). The show includes segments on prior medalists, including the Community Music School, Even Exchange Dance Theater, Lope Max Diaz, and Melissa Peden. The show will be offered on the following dates: 4/25 at 10 p.m., 4/26 at 4:30 p.m., 4/27 at 3 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., 4/28 at 5 p.m., and 4/29 at 8:30 p.m.
News item annotated by John W. Lambert (posted 4/24/05)
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Raleigh School Chorus Wins Regional Trophy
The “Sandpipers” of Jesse O. Sanderson High School, a group directed by Marshall E. Butler, Jr., has won the 2005 Triangle Youth Chorus Trophy. Along with the Trophy, the Raleigh school received a $750 cash grant, and recording services and music scores valued at $500. The awards were made at a surprise presentation at Sanderson High on Thursday, April 7. Attending the celebration were William (Bill) McNeal, Superintendent of the Wake County Public Schools, and Assistant Superintendent Anne Hooker.
Another distinguished Raleigh ensemble, the Enloe High School Chamber Choir, directed by Ann L. Huff, received the runner-up award earlier in the day.
The annual Triangle Youth Chorus Trophy competition is open to public high school and middle school choirs with at least 25 singers in Wake, Durham, Orange and Chatham counties. Selection is based on musical excellence and other accomplishments, including the impact the choruses have on their members and the community.
The [t]rophy is an inventive metal sculpture: 14 choristers on a wood base with plaques for 30 years of recipients. The Trophy and a smaller runner-up award are presented each April to two youth groups, which keep the prizes until the following spring. The awards were designed by North Carolina artist Lyle Estill and commissioned by TriangleSings!, the regional choral website. In 2004 the Durham School of the Arts Chorale, directed by Scott Hill, became the first Trophy recipient.
The 2005 competition was sponsored by Hinshaw Music Company, TriangleSings!, Walton Music Corporation, Sally K. Albrecht and Jay Althouse, Lisa and Tom McIver, Burrage Music Company, Alice and Lance Buhl, and the Youth Pro Musica Fund. The $750 grant is to be used by Mr. Butler to benefit the Sandpipers or the Sanderson vocal music department. In addition, Chapel Hill-based Hinshaw Music has provided a $300 credit for the purchase of music for one year. Raleigh recording engineer/photographer Mark Manring and VoChor, Inc., based in Durham, are each donating a professional recording and edited master for the runner-up and the winning choir.
Trophy winners were selected by an Advisory Board of educators, conductors, reviewers, radio hosts, singers and choral enthusiasts. The members are: Lance Buhl, Buhl & Associates; Beverley Francis, Triangle Community Foundation; Ken Hoover, WCPE “Great Sacred Music”; John Lambert, Classical Voice of North Carolina (CVNC); Lisa McIver, Brightleaf Music Workshop; Fran Page, Capital City Girls Choir/Meredith College; Carol Robbins, TriangleSings!/Youth Pro Musica Fund of Triangle Community Foundation; Al Sturgis, North Carolina Master Chorale/Carolina Ballet. As the previous year’s winning director joins the panel to help decide the next recipient, the Advisory Board also included Mrs. Hill, now director of the Durham Children’s Choir, in 2005.
The 49-member Sandpipers is the most advanced of three vocal ensembles at Sanderson High School, where Mr. Butler has taught for the past 12 years. The group has long received “Superior” ratings at regional competitions; last fall, they performed by invitation at the North Carolina Music Educators Conference in Winston-Salem. Locally, the group has sung for Wake County’s “Pieces of Gold,” for neighborhood elementary schools, and for Governor Easley and members of the State Senate at the Governor’s Mansion. In recent years, the chorus also has traveled to appear at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC; St. John’s the Divine and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City; Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in Orlando. In June 2001, the Sandpipers provided music for a mass in St. Paul’s Basilica in the Vatican and gave concerts in four Italian cities.
The Sandpipers, the Enloe Chamber Choir and two other outstanding Wake County applicants – Middle Creak High School (Apex) Choral Ensemble, directed by Michael Gilliam, and Southeast Raleigh High School “Select” Chorus, directed by Elsie Norton – will be featured in a segment of “Great Sacred Music” on WCPE-FM on Sunday, April 17th.
For further information and digital photos), contact Carol Robbins at 919/545-0343 or youthpromusica@aol.com. Marshall Butler may be reached at 919/881-4838.
*For photographs of the presentation (and sound clips), courtesy of Mark Manring Recording and Photography, see http://www.manring.net/recording/photos/SHS_Marshall_Butler_TYC_Award_4-7-05/.
News item courtesy of Carol Robbins & TriangleSings (posted 4/8/05 & updated* 4/12&19/05)
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Appointment: Robert Franz, 37, former director of the Carolina Chamber Symphony, has been appointed Resident Conductor of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, whose MD is JoAnne Falletta. He was selected from a field of 175 applicants. Franz will relinquish his post as Associate Conductor of the Louisville Orchestra but continue to serve as MD of the Mansfield (Ohio) SO. He was educated at the NCSA.
News item annotated by John W. Lambert (posted 4/8/05)
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NC Composers Will Be Featured by NC Symphony (posted 4/4/05)
The NC Symphony has announced two commissioning programs that will result in a series of premieres in its 75th anniversary season (2006-7). The programs are being called “Music for the 21st Century.” A press release reveals that “Postcards from North Carolina,” will feature works by Paul Elwood (Brevard), Kenneth Frazelle (Winston-Salem), Roger Hannay (Chapel Hill); Stephen Jaffe, Anthony Kelley, and Robert Ward (Durham), and J. Mark Scearce (Raleigh). “Six of the composers will … write … four-to-six minute work[s] depicting … elements of North Carolina’s unique flavor—a particular place or region, person or group, art or music either from the current day or historic time. [T]he seventh composer, Scearce will bind the individual works together to create a suite. Each work will be performed by the orchestra as an independent piece during the … Symphony’s 75th anniversary. When combined with Scearce’s unifying closing work, all the compositions will be performed as a suite in May 2007 at the Symphony’s Annual Gala and Concert at Meymandi Concert Hall in Raleigh. Premières of each commissioned work will be performed in Raleigh as well as in other cities throughout the state. While each work will be distinctive, when drawn together into a longer work, they will add up to more than the sum of their parts, creating a multifaceted reflection of North Carolina’s people and places.” Scearce writes, “‘Postcards’ is an intriguing concept that we composers are looking forward to collaborating to create. [A]ll seven of us [are] thrilled to have been chosen to represent North Carolina and the many creative artists that live and work in communities throughout our state [and] as living composers we are excited to encourage our state symphony in this truly unique venture.”
In addition, a “Young Composer Prize” will focus on emerging young composers born after 10/15/75. NC residents or students enrolled full-time in a NC schools are eligible to apply. Six finalists will participate in a January 2006 Composers’ Symposium in Chapel Hill and Raleigh. Seminar leaders will be composers Jennifer Higdon, Edgar Meyer, and Harold Meltzer. The winning composition will be performed by the NCS in the 75th anniversary season. The winner will also receive a cash prize and a professionally copied score and set of parts. For more information about the Young Composer Prize, contact NCS Education Director Suzanne Rousso at 919/733-2750, ext. 235, or srousso@ncsymphony.org.
The press release announcing these programs is posted at http://www.ncsymphony.org/news/index.cfm.
News item compiled and annotated by John W. Lambert (posted 4/4/05)
