 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
|||||
 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
Inaugural Governor's Verses and Voices Festival Concert of Missouri
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Welcome |
.......... |
Senator Charles W. Shields, President Pro Tem |
Prelude to Peace |
.......... |
Z. Randall Stroope / Sara Teasdale, Poet |
Gloria |
.......... |
Ron Atteberry |
Jefferson City High School Chorale / Beth Dampf, Director / Beth Eckles, Pianist |
||
Poetry Reading |
.......... |
Mary Beth Rosenauer, Savannah High School |
First Lady Award Winner, Poetry Interpretation / Visual Appeal; Under a Bare Bulb |
||
The Inward Music (Premiere Performance) |
.......... |
Robert Pherigo |
I Know a Bird |
.......... |
Emma Lou Diemer |
Lee's Summit North Crimson Camerata / Steve Perry, Director / Robert Pherigo, Pianist |
||
Poetry Reading |
||
Lightening |
.......... |
Greg Gilpin |
I Dream a World |
.......... |
Andre Thomas / Langston Hughes, Poet |
Lafayette High School Concert Choir / Kim Evans, Director / Brenda Foster, Pianist |
||
Poetry Reading |
.......... |
Senator Charles W. Shield |
Stars I Shall Find |
.......... |
David Dickau / Sara Teasdale, Poet |
That Music Always Round Me |
.......... |
Carlyle Sharpe |
Missouri Western State University Concert Chorale Dr. David Benz, Director / Dr. Brenden Kinsella, Pianist |
||
Trilogy of Dreams |
.......... |
Rollo Dilworth / James Langston Hughes, Poet |
Dreamkeeper |
(Please hold applause until end of trilogy) |
|
Dreams |
||
I Dream a World |
||
Savannah High School Concert Choir / Mary Ann Haenni, Director / Kathy Weeks, Accompanist |
||
Poetry Readings |
.......... |
Walter Bargen, Missouri Poet Laureate |
Amy Beth Kirsten, Missouri Verses and Voices Commission Composer |
||
Hall of Waters |
.......... |
Amy Beth Kirsten / Walter Bargen, Poet |
Premiere of the 2010 Missouri Verses and Voices Commission Combined Choirs / Dr. David Benz, Director / Cindy Price Svehla, Clarinet |
||
 |
|
|
February 9, 2010
Dear Fellow Missourians,
Greetings! And congratulations as you gather for the first annual Governor’s Verses and Voices Festival Concert of Missouri. We also extend a special welcome and thank you to David Benz, Mary Ann Haenni and Walter Bargen, the founders of Verses and Voices. Each of you has made a difference in the lives of Missouri children.
During this special concert, we also pay tribute to Walter Bargen for his service as Missouri’s first Poet Laureate. Walter, thank you for all you’ve done to promote poetry and literature in the Show-Me State.
The arts are the bright, unexpected threads shot through the muted fabric of our daily lives. They bring us joy and deepen human experience. They stir our imagination. They connect us with one another, and they create a tapestry that reveals who we are and what we value. The arts preserve for future generations what we think is worth listening to, looking at, talking about, and remembering.
The arts also play a major role in economic development. Families want to live where the arts flourish. Businesses want to locate in communities that support and encourage the arts in all their varied forms: painting and sculpture, theater and dance, design and craft, film and poetry, literature and music.
The Verses and Voices Festival is an important part of prescribing and promoting our arts traditions, and I am proud to be a part of this special tradition.
My very best wishes for a successful Governor’s Verses and Voices Festival Concert of Missouri.
Sincerely,
Georganne W. Nixon
Born in East St. Louis and raised in the Chicago area, Ms. Kirsten received her Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Jazz Studies from Illinois’ Benedictine University, and her Master’s Degree in Composition from the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University. Before moving to Baltimore to attend Peabody, Ms. Kirsten was a regular fixture in the Chicago singer/songwriter scene performing at such venues as Fitzgeralds Nightclub, Quenchers Saloon, The Subterranean, Katerina’s, and Uncommon Ground. She got her start as a singer by studying the great improvisers of jazz. To this day, she uses the skills she developed in her jazz training as a tool in her work as a composer of contemporary concert music. Ms. Kirsten is also a fan of working with words. Two of her poems have been selected for publication (Red Wheelbarrow: National 2008 and The Avatar Review: Summer 2009.) Ms. Kirsten’s most recent honor includes receiving a 2009 Creative Arts Residency at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Bellagio, Italy to work on her opera Red.
On February 13, 2008, Governor Matt Blunt officially introduced Walter Bargen as the first poet laureate of Missouri. His work has appeared in over one hundred magazines, including American Literary Review, Missouri Review, American Letters and Commentary, Poetry Northwest, The Georgia Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, and Prairie Schooner.
Bargen is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in poetry, and winner of the William Rockhill Nelson Award. Other awards include the Quarter After Eight Prose Prize, the St. Louis Poetry Center’s Hanks Prize, and the Chester H. Jones Foundation Prize. For 20 years, Walter has worked at the University of Missouri-Columbia as the Senior Coordinator for the Assessment Resource Center. He has a Bachelors degree in philosophy and a Masters degree in English education Walter Bargen from UMC.
BOOKS BY WALTER BARGEN
At the Dead Center of Day, BKMK Press, UMKC, 1997.
The Body of Water, Timberline Press, 2000.
Days Like This Are Necessary: New and Selected Poems, BKMK Press, UMKC, 2009
The Feast, BKMK Press, UMKC, 2003.
Fields of Thenar, Singing Wind Press, Gentile Press, 1980.
Harmonic Balance, Timberline Press, 2001.
Mysteries in the Public Domain, BKMK Press, UMKC, 1990.
Remedies for Vertigo, Word Tech Communications, 2006.
Rising Waters – Reflections on the Year of the Great Flood, Pekitanour Publications, 1994.
Theban Traffic, Word Tech Communications, 2008.
The Vertical River, Timberline Press, 1995.
Water Breathing Air, Timberline Press, 1999.
West of West, Timberline Press, 2007.
Yet Other Waters, Timberline Press, 1990.
www.walterbargen.com
Composers and Poets for Tonight’s Concert
Ron Atteberry
Ron Atteberry retired as director of vocal music at Lebanon High School after 30 years. He continues to teach part-time for the Stoutland R-2 Schools. Ron also serves as an adjunct instructor for Drury University (Lebanon campus) and as part of the adjunct Voice faculty for Southwest Baptist University. In the Fall of 2009, Ron served as Concert Master for the Springfield Mid-America Singers. This spring he will serve as Director and premier his newest major work, "Leaves of Grass." He is the Director of the Lebanon Community Choir and the Lebanon Community Band and Wyota Brass. His Choirs have sung in Carnegie Hall twice, Toronto, Canada, England and France. In London, the Choir won the Gold Medal at the Anglo International Choral Festival. Under his direction, Lebanon High School Choirs have made two appearances before the Missouri Music Educators Association. Lebanon H.S. Choirs consistently earn superior ratings at State Choral Festival. Mr. Atteberry recently retired as Choral Director for the Missouri Ambassadors of Music. These choirs have performed in London' s Wesley Chapel, Paris' St. Sevrin, Innsbruck's Wilton Basilica and St. Mark's Basilica in Venice. He regularly serves as a clinician and adjudicator. He has sung with the Springfield Little Theatre, the Springfield Regional Opera and the Mid-America Singers. He has been voted as Outstanding Educator for the Lebanon High School as well as the Outstanding Choral Director for the South Central District of Missouri Choral Directors Association. In 2008, the Missouri Choral Directors Association awarded him the Luther T. Spayde award. Mr. Atteberry is a composer with several choral compositions in print. He has had over 12 compositions premiered at the Missouri Music Educators conference. He has also written several commissioned works for District Choirs, Regional, and National Choral Conventions. Additionally, “When Lilacs Bloom'd” (SSA Heritage Press) has been reviewed in the national publication of the American Choral Directors Association, the “Choral Journal.” He is a member of ACDA, MCDA, MENC, MMEA, SCMMEA, and Kappa Kappa Psi. Ron has served as Choral Vice President and President of the South Central Music Educators Association. Mr. Atteberry is a graduate of Southwest Baptist University (summa cum laude) and Southwest Missouri State University. Post graduate work has been done at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Emma Lou Diemer
Emma Lou Diemer was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Emma Lou played the piano and composed at a very early and became organist in her church at age 13. Her great interest in composing music continued through College High School in Warrensburg, and she majored in composition at the Yale Music School and at the Eastman School of Music. She studied in Brussels, Belgium on a Fulbright Scholarship and spent two summers of composition study at the Berkshire Music Center. She taught in several colleges and was organist at several churches in the Kansas City area during the 1950’s. From 1959-61 she was composer-in-residence in the Arlington, VA schools under the Ford Foundation Young Composers Project. She was consultant for the MENC Contemporary Music Project before joining the faculty of the University of Maryland where she taught composition and theory at the University of California, Santa Barbara. At UCSB she was instrumental in founding the electronic/computer music program. In 1991 she became Professor Emeritus. Diemer has fulfilled many commissions from schools, churches and professional organization. Most of her works are published. She has received awards from Yale University, The Eastman School of Music, the National Endowment for the Arts, Mu Phi Epsilon, the Kennedy Center Friedheim Awards, the American Guild of Organists, ASCAP and the Santa Barbara Symphony.
Rollo Dilworth
Rollo Dilworth is assistant professor of music, director of the bachelor of music education program, and director of choral activities at North Park University, Chicago, IL, where he has taught since 1996. Dilworth has a bachelor of science in music education from Case Western Reserve University; a M.Ed. from University of Missouri-St. Louis; and a D.M.A. in Conducting Performance from Northwestern University. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Dilworth serves as conductor of the North Park University Gospel Choir and the University Choir. He is an oft-published composer of choral music, with emphasis in the areas of spirituals and gospel inspired works. He is an award-winning composer and his work has taken him to the continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. In addition to his research in African-American music, he also serves as Minister of Music at Martin Temple African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in Chicago. Dilworth was born in 1970 in St. Louis, Missouri.
Greg Gilpin
Originally from Missouri, Greg now resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a graduate of Northwest Missouri State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Music Education, K-12. Greg is an ASCAP award-winning choral composer and arranger with hundreds of publications to his credit. He is also in demand as a conductor for choral festivals, all-district, and all-state choirs. As Director of Educational Choral Publications for Shawnee Press, Inc., Greg oversees creation of the educational music products. At home in Indianapolis, Greg is busy as a studio musician and producer in the recording industry. These projects include commercial jingles, CD projects, Broadway and Disney.
James Langston Hughes (1902-1967)
James Langston Hughes was born February 1, 1902, in Joplin, Missouri. He was raised by his grandmother until he was thirteen when he moved to Lincoln, Illinois and eventually settled with his family in Cleveland, Ohio. Following graduation, he spent a year in Mexico and a year at Columbia University. He held odd jobs and traveled to Africa and Europe working as a seaman. In 1924, he moved to Washington, D.C. Hughes’ first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, a volume of jazz poems, was published in 1926. He finished his college education at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania three years later. In 1930, his first novel, Not Without Laughter, won the Harmon gold medal for literature. Hughes is known for his portrayals of black life in America from the twenties through the sixties. He wrote novels, short stories, and plays, as well as poetry. His life and work were important in shaping the artistic contributions of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920’s. Often hailed as the “Negro Poet Laureate”, Hughes died in Harlem on May 22, 1967.
Robert Pherigo
Robert Pherigo (b. 1959) enjoys making music as a pianist, composer, tenor and conductor. He has accompanied numerous student and faculty recitals at Northwestern University and the Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Robert’s compositions have been performed by members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Kansas City Symphony and newEar. His choral compositions have been performed by the Kansas City Chorale, The Lawrence Children’s Choir, Lee’s Summit North Crimson Camerata and Women’s Chorus, Shawnee Mission East’s Concert Choir and Unity Temple on the Plaza’s Chancel Choir. As a tenor Robert has sung with the Chicago Chamber Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City and for four years sang with the Lyric Opera Express, the outreach program of the Lyric Opera. For ten years he was a member of the Kansas City Chorale. For three Christmas seasons he conducted Conrad Susa’s The Wise Women for the Kansas City Civic Opera. He has also conducted contemporary music for newEar, Kansas City’s only professional contemporary chamber music ensemble.
Carlyle Sharpe
Carlyle Sharpe is Associate Professor of Music in Theory and Composition at Drury University. His works have attracted numerous performances and prizes including those from the Washington Chorus at the Kennedy Center, the San Diego Symphony, the American Guild of Organists, ECS Publishing and the Holtkamp Organ Company. Various commissions include those from the Seraphim Singers (Boston), Providence Singers and the Olympic Quartet for the 2002 Winter Olympics Festival Concerts celebrating the Cultural Olympiad. His works have been broadcast over WGBH Radio-Boston, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and in national broadcasts by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and have been performed throughout the United States and abroad. He is published by ECS Publishing, Hinshaw Music, and Colla Voce Music and holds the BM summa cum laude and MM in composition from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and the DMA in composition from Boston University.
Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
Sara Teasdale was born Sarah Trevor Teasdale in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest child of John Warren Teasdale, a prominent businessman. Her parents were staunch Baptists with a Puritan heritage. Teasdale suffered poor health and was sheltered and protected by her family. She was educated at home until she was nine, and then sent to a girls school. She lived at home, with only brief times away to travel within the U.S. and to Europe, until her late twenties. In 1913, Teasdale fell in love with poet Vachel Lindsay. She married Ernst Filsinger in 1914. In 1918, her poetry collection Love Songs won the Columbia University Poetry Society prize, the 1918 Pulitzer Prize for poetry and the annual prize of the Poetry Society of America. In 1994, Teasdale was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. She is interred in the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
Verses and Voices is a new educational initiative focusing on vision and creativity. Seeing and expressing vision is a learned process that integrates several forms of creative knowledge and experience. This requires learning that combines all of the creative art forms: visual arts, communication arts, theatre/forensic/poetry arts, and musical arts. The purpose of Verses and Voices is to develop learning experiences that teach students to see, shape, and share the creative meaning of words. By teaching students to express the meaning of words creatively they are being equipped to shape and share their vision of life. The curriculum of Verses and Voices integrates the creative arts with the poetry of the national and state Poets Laureate and other writers. Their words, Verses, inspire many forms of vision. By creatively interacting with the Verses of the Poets Laureate, students are defining their creative Voices to see, shape, and share their individual and community vision.
Missouri’s Literary Heritage
Missouri has long been recognized for its rich literary history. Missouri authors have been making valuable contributions to American literature since Lewis and Clark first wrote about the state in the early 1800’s. One of Missouri’s most famous writers, Mark Twain, featured his hometown, Hannibal, in many of his works. T.S. Eliot, born in St. Louis, won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1948. An influential literary figure of the 20th century, Eliot is best known for The Waste Land and the “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, a poem whose main character was named after a business in St. Louis. Tennessee Williams attended Washington University and set his first play, The Glass Menagerie, in St. Louis. Influential Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes describes his childhood in Joplin, Missouri in his autobiography, The Big Sea. Marianne Moore, born in Kirkwood, edited an important nliterary journal, The Dial, and won Pulitzer and Bollingen prizes. St. Louis native Sara Teasdale won Columbia University’s Poetry Prize for Love Songs in 1918. Mona Van Duyn, a faculty member of Washington University, became the first woman appointed U.S. Poet Laureate in 1992. She won the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for Near Changes. Maya Angelou, although born in Missouri, left the state as a child, but writes about time spent here in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
The literature of Missouri grew in part out of the state’s newspaper culture. Twain’s first writing experience was for Missouri newspapers, and Ernest Hemingway got his start as a general hospital reporter for the Kansas City Star. Joseph Pulitzer formed the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and established prizes in his name to recognize outstanding writers. Laura Ingalls Wilder lived in Mansfield and was a journalist for The Missouri Ruralist before she published her first book at age 65. Eugene Field, known mostly for his children’s poetry, wrote for the St. Joseph Gazette and several other Missouri newspapers.
Acknowledgements and Thanks
Deb Barnhart, Don Crabtree, Capitol Plaza Hotel and Convention Center, Creations Engraving, Chad Crooks, Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church, Teresa Fankhauser, Taylor Glascock, Glenda and Tim Haley, Huffman Memorial United Methodist Church, Jefferson City First United Methodist Church, Cathy Ketter, Keiko Ishida, Diane Jacobs, KFEQ, KQ2, KXCV, Mark Maugh, Missouri Western State University, Arlene Rose, St. Joseph News Press, St. Joseph School District, St. Joseph Host Lions Club, Savannah R-III School District, Derek Soldanels, Joyce Storer, Steve Van Dyke.
Missouri Verses and Voices State Committee
Honorary Chairperson
Georganne Wheeler Nixon, Missouri First Lady
Founders
Walter Bargen, Missouri Poet Laureate
Dr. David Benz, Missouri Western State University
Mary Ann Haenni, Savannah High School
Debbie Brunner, Special Assistant to the First Lady
Jana Fox, Capitol Site Coordinator
Northwest Regional Leadership Team
Executive Board
Dr. David Benz
Kevin Griffin
Mary Ann Haenni
Darren Verbick
Ex-Officio
Walter Bargen
Don Lawrence, Superintendent, Savannah R-III Schools
Dr. Melody Smith, Superintendent, SJSD
Administration Support
Leisa Blair, Principal, Savannah Middle School
Dr. Matt Gilmour, Chair, Department of Music, MWSU
Steve Kellepouris, Principal, Savannah High School
Dr. Tim Mattson, Savannah R-III Schools
Curricular Area Sub-Committees and Chairs
Visual Arts
- Renée Beggs, Central High School
- Shirlee Kiner, Savannah High School
- Traci Lewis, Savannah Middle School
- Barb Paolillo, Bode Middle School
- Diana Wood, Lafayette High School
Communication Arts
- Jonnie Kemmerling, Savannah High School
- Kelly Lock, Benton High School
Theatre/Forensic/Poetry Arts
- Don Crabtree, Vice President, National Forensics League
- Mike Pittman, Savannah High School
- Kristi Reedy
Libraries
- Barb Read, Rolling Hills Library
- Jennifer Halter, SJSD Library Coordinator
Financial Resources
Roger Unruh
Technical Support
Diane Jacobs
Mark Maugh, SJSD
Derek Soldanels, SHS
Festival Site Host/Coordinator
Chad Crooks
 |
|
 |
versesandvoices.org
Download a PDF of this program here.
Go to the
Inaugural Governor's Verses and Voices Festival Concert of Missouri main page.
|
|
|
|
 |
|||
Missouri Verses and Voices
MWSU | 4525 Downs Drive, St. Joseph, MO 64507
Contents Property of Missouri Verses and Voices