Noted Organist, Massed Area Choirs to Commemorate Mendelssohn During UA’s 2009 Church Music Conference

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Concerts featuring a noted organist and choirs from churches in Tuscaloosa and Birmingham will salute composer Felix Mendelssohn during the sixth annual University of Alabama School of Music’s Church Music Conference.

The conference, titled “A Mendelssohn Year,” will be Friday, Jan. 30, and Saturday, Jan. 31, at the Moody Music Building on the UA campus. The year 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth.

During the first concert, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 30, Gail Archer, a member of the organ faculty at Manhattan School of Music, Barnard College and Columbia University, will perform works by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Max Reger and others. More information on Gail Archer is available at http://www.gailarcher.com.

The second concert, at 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 31, will offer Mendelssohn’s “Hymn of Praise” sung by the choirs of Independent Presbyterian Church of Birmingham; Christ Episcopal Church, First United Methodist Church and First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa; and UA’s University Singers. The choirs will be under the direction of Dr. John Ratledge, UA director of choral activities. Each choir also will perform an anthem of its choice.

The “Hymn of Praise,” or Symphony No.2, was written for the 1840 Gutenberg Festival in Leipzig to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the invention of printing. Mendelssohn described the “Hymn of Praise” as a “symphonic cantata,” possibly to avoid comparisons with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, although these works have little in common other than the fact they are both choral symphonies.

Both concerts will be in the Concert Hall at the Moody Music Building. Tickets for each concert are $12 for adults and $7 for seniors. Students and Church Music Conference participants will be admitted free with an ID.

UA’s Church Music Conferences, under the direction of Dr. Faythe Freese, UA associate professor of organ, attract more than 100 church musicians each year from the Southeastern United States.

Saturday workshops include organ masterclasses, handbells, psalm singing, liturgical drama and dance, choral singing and a choral reading session. The Saturday sessions take place from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The conference costs $85 if participants register by noon Friday, Jan. 23. Registration at the door is $95. For more information, contact Freese at 205/348-3329 or faythefreese@earthlink.net, or go to http://www.music.ua.edu/departments/organ/events/2009/preregistration/.

A brochure for the conference is available at http://organiste.net/images/UofAbrochure.pdf.

The School of Music is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Teams.