The teaching musicians of the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts will share their artistry with the community in a series of free public concerts this month at Middle Tennessee State University, showcasing the same talents they’re sharing daily with the hundreds of young participants attending the annual residency program.

The concerts, which feature MTSU School of Music professors alongside expert musicians from across the country, are planned for Tuesday, June 14; Friday, June 17; and Tuesday, June 21.

Each performance is set for 7:30 p.m. in Hinton Hall inside the School of Music’s Wright Music Building, located at 1439 Faulkinberry Drive in Murfreesboro.

The June 14 concert will feature four musical pieces: composer Madeline Dring’s Trio for Flute, Oboe and Piano; Alyssa Morris’ Duo Displasia; Hillary Tann’s Songs of the Cotton Grass; and Missy Mazolli’s Still Life with Avalanche.

Set to perform the Dring composition are MTSU flute professor Deanna Little, oboist Amy Collins of the University of South Florida and pianist Amy Dorfman of Vanderbilt University’s Blair School of Music.

Collins will return to present Morris’ piece with Blair School saxophonist Brian Utley and then perform Tann’s composition with West Virginia University voice professor and soprano Hope Koehler.

The Mazolli composition will offer a brief reunion of some of the members of MTSU’s acclaimed faculty ensemble-in-residence, the Stones River Chamber Players, joined by University of Mississippi cellist Christine Kralik. She and flutist Little will perform with clarinetist Todd Waldecker, violinist Andrea Dawson, percussionist Brian Mueller and pianist Richard Blumenthal, all MTSU professors.

The June 17 concert will showcase two works by composer Franz Schubert and pieces by Vaughan Williams and Ernest Chausson.

Blumenthal, MTSU horn colleague Angela DeBoer and Eastern Carolina University tenor Daniel Shirley are set to present Schubert’s Auf dem Strom. Koehler and Waldecker will return with Lipscomb University pianist Jerome Reed to perform Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen.

For Williams’ composition Five Mystical Songs, Dawson and Kralik will be joined by West Virginia University pianist William Koehler, Nashville Opera chorus master and accompanist Amy Tate Williams, Austin Peay State University violinist Emily Hannah-Crane, University of Virginia violist Ayn Balija and Chattanooga Symphony and Opera bassist Taylor Brown.

Chausson’s Chanson Perpétuelle will be presented by Dawson, Blumenthal, Kralik, Hope Koehler, Hannah-Crane and Balija.

And on June 21, Governor’s School faculty will conclude their concerts with performances of Ludwig von Beethoven’s Quartet in F minor, op. 95; Paul Hindemith’s Kleine Kammermusic No. 2; and Schumann’s Piano Quintet, op. 44.

Dawson, Hannah-Crane, Balija and Kralik will perform the Beethoven piece, and Little, Collins, Waldecker and DeBoer will be joined by Chattanooga State Community College bassist Staci Spring for the Hindemith piece. Hannah-Clare, Dawson, Balija, Kralik and Reed will present the Schumann work.

MTSU launched, continues Governor’s School tradition

The 38th annual Governor’s School for the Artsis a three-week residency program for public, private and home-schooled high school juniors and seniors in music, theater, visual arts, dance and filmmaking, aided by faculty and performing artists from across the country.

They apply or are nominated by their teachers and audition or present portfolios of their work. When they’re accepted, they come to MTSU for days filled with workshops and presentations and master classes and rehearsals and guest lectures and field trips and concerts and evenings that are much of the same.

Tennessee established summer programs for young people in the arts, engineering and math, and international studies — one for each of the state’s three grand divisions — in 1984 at the behest of then-governor Lamar Alexander.  

Today there are 11 different Governor’s Schools across the state, ranging from agricultural sciences to teaching, to immerse students in their chosen fields for three to four weeks. Some give them college course credit, too.

Finale and other performance videos from the Tennessee Governor’s School for the Arts are available at www.youtube.com/user/TnGSFTA/videos. More information about the annual event is available at https://gsfta.com and on its social media accounts at Facebook and Instagram.

For more information about MTSU’s College of Liberal Arts, which offers programs in each of the Governor’s School specialties, visit www.mtsu.edu/liberalarts.

— Gina E. Fann (gina.fann@mtsu.edu)