Tickets are still available to hear the MTSU Schola Cantorum and Middle Tennessee Choral Society blending their voices Sunday, Sept. 29, in a special Presidential Concert performance of Giuseppi Verdi’s “Requiem.”

The concert is scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 29 in Hinton Hall inside MTSU’s Wright Music Building, located at 1439 Faulkinberry Drive.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $12.50 for seniors and $10 for children 12 and younger and are available online at https://mtchoralsociety.org and at the door. MTSU students, faculty and staff will be admitted free with current IDs.

Dr. Raphael Bundage, a professor of vocal performance in MTSU’s School of Music and the Choral Society’s music director/conductor, is conducting this joint MTSU-community performance of the Italian composer’s 1874 tribute to a nationally beloved poet and novelist, Allesandro Manzoni.

Dr. Raphael Bundage

The choral groups also are welcoming four guest soloists for this special production:

• soprano Melissa Shippens Burrows, an internationally acclaimed Brentwood, Tennessee, resident with degrees from The Juilliard School.

• mezzo-soprano Jami Rhodes, an assistant professor of voice at East Carolina University’s School of Music in Greenville, North Carolina.

• tenor H. Stephen Smith, associate dean of MTSU’s College of Liberal Arts and a vocal music professor in the School of Music.

• bass John Kramar, an associate professor of voice and opera at East Carolina University and director of the ECU Opera Theater.

The Schola Cantorum comprises MTSU’s best upper-division vocal majors and graduate students. The internationally recognized Choral Society includes top student vocalists alongside outstanding singers from the surrounding community.

Jami Rhodes

Melissa Shippens Burrows

A preview of the groups’ work is available below, featuring the MTSU Schola Cantorum and Middle Tennessee Choral Society performing the “Hallelujah Chorus” from “Messiah” at their 2017 holiday concert.

This concert, sponsored by the Office of the President, MTSU’s Sidney A. McPhee, launches another busy season for the Middle Tennessee Choral Society.

Its annual “Season’s Greetings” concert, set at 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, in Hinton Hall at MTSU with the Schola Cantorum, will feature the music of Georg Frideric Handel, Mack Wilberg and Felix Mendelssohn.

Dr. H. Stephen Smith

John Kramar

On Sunday, March 1, the MTSU Schola Cantorum and Middle Tennessee Choral Society will present “From Opera to Broadway,” featuring music from Giacomo Puccini, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.

For details on other School of Music events, call 615-898-2493 or visit the  “Concert Calendar” link.

For details on joining the Middle Tennessee Choral Society, contact Bundage at raphael.bundage@mtsu.edu or 615-898-2849.

— Gina E. Fann (gina.fann@mtsu.edu)