MACON – Mercer University’s Townsend School of Music will host a free concert at 2 p.m. Monday, January 21, as the final event of the fifth International Conductors Workshop held Thursday-Monday, January 17-21. Open to the public, the concert will be held in Fickling Hall of the McCorkle Music Building on Mercer’s Macon campus. The program will feature works by Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy and Haydn, among others.
Twelve conductors from around the world will conduct a fifty-piece orchestra made up of faculty and students from Mercer’s Townsend School of Music, the Mercer University Orchestra, the Mercer/Macon Symphony Youth Orchestra, the Brookwood High School Orchestra of Gwinnett County and the Macon Symphony Orchestra.
Up to three workshop winners will be chosen who will have the opportunity to guest conduct the Macon Symphony Orchestra during the 2008-2009 season. Past winners of the competition include workshop faculty member Dr. Gregory Pritchard, Music Director of the Gainesville Symphony, and Mercer University graduate student Keitaro Harada, Conductor of the Mercer/Macon Symphony Youth Orchestra and Assistant Conductor of Macon Symphony Orchestra.
The internationally recognized faculty for the workshop includes Maestro Adrian Gnam, Distinguished Artist-in-Residence at Mercer University and Music Director and Conductor of the Macon Symphony Orchestra; Douglas Hill, director of undergraduate studies and director of instrumental ensembles at Mercer’s Townsend School of Music; Stanley L. Roberts, interim dean and director of choral activities at Mercer’s Townsend School of Music; and Pritchard.
For more information about the workshop or concert, contact Mercer’s Townsend School of Music at (478) 301-2748.
Mercer University’s Townsend School of Music and the Townsend-McAfee Institute Graduate Studies in Church Music offer undergraduate and graduate professional music studies in a comprehensive university environment. The School is nationally recognized for its outstanding faculty, award-winning students, performance ensembles and state-of-the-art facilities. It is also home to the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings. Mercer University is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music.
Founded in 1833, Mercer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional education. The University has 7,300 students; 11 schools and colleges – liberal arts, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, education, theology, music, nursing and continuing and professional studies; major campuses in Macon and Atlanta; four regional academic centers across the state; a university press; two teaching hospitals — Memorial Health University Medical Center and the Medical Center of Central Georgia; educational partnerships with Warner Robins Air Logistics Center in Warner Robins and Piedmont Healthcare in Atlanta; an engineering research center in Warner Robins; a performing arts center in Macon; and a NCAA Division I athletic program. For more information, visit www.mercer.edu .
