Inaugural Governor's Verses and Voices Festival Concert of Missouri
2010 Press Release

February 28, 2010: Press Release for the Missouri Choral Director’s Association State Reporter

Governor’s Verses and Voices Festival Honors
Missouri’s First Poet Laureate, Walter Bargen

The inaugural Governor’s Verses and Voices Festival Concert of Missouri took place in the Capitol Rotunda in Jefferson City on Tuesday, February 9, 2010. The event celebrated the music, art, and poetry of Missouri and honored Walter Bargen for his term of service to Missouri as our state’s first Poet Laureate. The host for the Governor’s Festival Concert was Senator Charles W. Shields, Missouri Senate President Pro Tem. Five choirs were invited to perform in the first annual state concert, including the Jefferson City High School Chorale, Beth Dampf, director and current President of the Missouri Choral Director’s Association; Lafayette High School Concert Choir of St. Joseph, Kim Evans, director; Lee’s Summit North Crimson Camerata, Steve Perry, director; Savannah High School Concert Choir, Mary Ann Haenni, director, and the Missouri Western State University Concert Chorale, Dr. David Benz, director. Each choir performed two songs, one by a Missouri composer and one setting a poem by a Missouri poet. To see the concert program for the festival concert go here.

Missouri Verses and Voices is a new collaborative educational program that teaches students to see, shape and share the creative meaning of words through poetry, music, visual arts, and communication and interpretive arts. A focus of the program is to creatively interact with the Missouri Poet Laureate and the Poet Laureate Consultant to the Library of Congress. The Governor’s Festival Concert included award winning poetry readings and a visual art display interpreting poems by Walter Bargen, Missouri’s first and current Poet Laureate. Mr. Bargen is completing his term of service as Poet Laureate this February, 2010. To honor him for his service to Missouri, Verses and Voices commissioned Amy Beth Kirsten to compose a song setting a poem by Mr. Bargen. Amy Beth Kirsten, a St. Louis native and past Savannah High School student is completing her doctorate in music composition at Peabody Conservatory this May, 2010. She selected Bargen’s poem Hall of Waters for the text and title of the new song. The participating choirs combined to premiere the new song which included solo clarinet performed by Cindy Price Svehla, a music teacher in the Liberty schools. Dr. David Benz, co-founder and artistic director of Verses and Voices conducted the premiere and stated, “this new song by Amy presents some of the best aspects of contemporary choral music and poetic interpretation. Its complexity deeply challenged all of us, and in the end, it deeply rewarded us. I highly commend the participating choirs and their teachers for meeting the challenge to teach and learn this new song and present such a magnificent premiere in a place of stunning beauty and sound.” Audience members marveled at the new music and the architectural and acoustical phenomenon when Dr. Benz placed the combined choir of 200 voices in different levels of the Capitol Rotunda dome. Walter and Amy participated in the festival concert and were thrilled with the premiere of the new song.

Verses and Voices co-founder Mary Ann Haenni said, “we knew the inaugural festival concert was a significant experience for everyone who participated and attended. When Joe Gray, who was being honored by the Missouri Arts Council as the 2009 Missouri Arts Philanthropist of the year spoke at the Missouri Citizens for the Arts luncheon the next day, he told everyone that in his 80 years of attending concerts his experience the night before at the Governor’s Verses and Voices Festival Concert was the most memorable night of his life. It was an amazing night for all of us.”

Missouri Verses and Voices is partially supported by a matching grant from the Missouri Arts Council. Missouri First Lady Georganne Nixon is the organization’s Honorary Chairperson.

Download a PDF of this Press Release here.


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