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OBU—Oklahoma Baptist University

Thirty-First Annual Concerto-Aria Concert

February 7, 2005

The Oklahoma Baptist University Division of Music will host the thirty-first annual Concerto-Aria Concert on Friday, February 18 at 8:30 in Potter Auditorium. The event is part of the division's "Music Main Event," a two-day period set aside for parents, prospective students, and others to visit classes, rehearsals, lessons, and see what "a day in the life of an OBU music major" is like.


The Concerto-Aria Concert features students selected by the faculty-at-large as the best soloists for that year. Students audition in December for the event, prepare through January and early February, and perform selected movements from concertos or arias from operas with orchestra at the concert.

The event begins with a pre-concert lecture at 7:30 in Raley Chapel room 203, featuring Kristen Todd, assistant professor of music, Dana Phillips (senior music education major from Oklahoma City), and Elise Anderson (junior music/anthropology major from Tishomingo.) A reception honoring the soloists and their families will follow in OBU's Geiger Center.

"I always thoroughly enjoy the Concerto-Aria concert," says Kristen Todd. "It is an opportunity for some of our best students to demonstrate their gifts and to share with the rest of the OBU and Shawnee community."

Soloists for this year's event include Katie Cease, oboe (Tulsa), Laura Sowell, clarinet (Edmond), Aaron Jameson, trumpet (Yakima, WA), Adam N. Ray, saxophone (Shawnee), Olivier David, piano (Mauritius), Anna Kurtz, piano (Heber Springs, AR), Keri Dee Burman, soprano (Edmond), Michael Slaughter, bass (Del City), Meredith Leigh Humphrey, soprano (Mesquite, TX), and Lindsey Katherine Doolin, soprano (Lawton). They will perform works by Vaughan Williams, Wagner, Haydn, Glazunov, Rachmaninov, Verdi, Donizetti, Mozart, and Bizet.

This year's concert will be conducted by James Vernon, associate professor of music and chair of the Division of Music.

Ron Lewis began the Concerto-Aria concert series in 1974 as a way for pianists to have an opportunity to perform with orchestra. It was expanded to include instrumentalists and vocalists.

For more information, please contact the OBU Division of Music at 405-878-2306 or via email at music@okbu.edu.