McDuffie Center Students and Faculty to Perform at State Botanical Garden in Concert to Honor Fickling

272
statue of jesse mercer sitting on a bench

The State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens will host a special Botanic Musicale featuring The Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi on Wednesday, April 25, at 7 p.m. Admission is free of charge. The concert will feature students from Mercer’s Robert McDuffie Center for Strings performing with Grammy Award nominee and Center founder, Robert McDuffie, violin, and Elizabeth Pridgen, the G. Leslie Fabian piano chair in music. This concert is one in a series to honor longtime Macon civic leader and honorary Mercer alumna Neva Langley Fickling.
 
Robert McDuffie has appeared as soloist with most of the major orchestras of the world, including the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Santa Cecilia Orchestra of Rome, Venice Baroque Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico, and all of the major orchestras of Australia. He has been profiled on NBC’s Today, CBS Sunday Morning, Charlie Rose on PBS, Breakfast with the Arts on A&E, and in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
 
Elizabeth Pridgen has distinguished herself as a soloist and chamber musician and has appeared as soloist with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Rome Symphony Orchestra, and Dekalb Symphony Orchestra. She performs regularly at festivals, including the Amelia Island Chamber Music Festival, the Rome Chamber Festival in Rome, Italy, the Strings Music Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and the Madison Chamber Music Festival in Madison, Georgia.
 
The concert will be followed by a reception. Seating is limited so reservations are strongly encouraged. Call (706) 542-1244. The State Botanical Garden of Georgia is located at 2450 S. Milledge Ave. in Athens. For more information visit botgarden.uga.edu/.