2009 St. Joseph/Savannah Missouri Verses and Voices Festival
Concert Program

Missouri Western State University
Department of Music
presents

Celebrating Missouri’s Music, Art and Poetry


Festival Concert
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church

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Festival Sanctus	..........	John Leavitt
Climbin’ Up the Mountain	..........	Rollo Dilworth
Griffon Junior Singers Premiere Choir Karen Heyde-Lipanovich, Director / Cathy McKim, Pianist
Poetry Reading
Barter	..........	Frank DeWald/Sara Teasdale, Poet
Go Ye Into All the World	..........	Eugene Butler
LeBlond High School Concert Choir / Christie Ottinger, Director / Tom Smith, Pianist
Fair and True	..........	James Mulholland
In Time of Silver Rain	..........	Z. Randall Stroope/Langston Hughes, Poet
St. Joseph Community Chorus Chamber Choir David Benz, Artistic Director; Frank Thomas, Director / Ara Ju, 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
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 Reading
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 Kinsalla, Pianist
Every Night and Every Morn	..........	Mark Hayes
Combined Choirs / Dr. David Benz, Director / Dr. Brenden Kinsalla, Pianist

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September 30, 2009

Dear Missouri Educator,
As the First Lady of Missouri, I am pleased to invite you to participate in Missouri Verses and Voices. I now serve as Honorary Chairperson for Verses and Voices, and I am especially hopeful that this organization will inspire a new focus on creative learning and expression in our schools.

Missouri Verses and Voices encourages creative collaboration through the poetry, music and art of Missouri. Our state is blessed with a wonderful history and a current wealth of poets and authors. Together, we can ensure that this important legacy continues.

I am very hopeful that Missouri Verses and Voices will grow throughout our state in the years to come. Please join me by bringing your school and your students into this new creative community.

Sincerely,

Georganne Wheeler Nixon

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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

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Composers and Poets for Tonight’s Concert

Eugene Butler
Dr. Eugene Butler received a B.M.E. degree from Oklahoma University, a Master of Sacred Music degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York and D.M.A. in Composition from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. As a composer, Dr. Butler has received various honors, such as Kansas Composer of the Year and the coveted ASCAP Standard Music Panel Award, every year since 1972. In 1983, he was selected as the Outstanding Alumnus by the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 1989, Dr. Butler received a National Teaching Excellence Award from the University of Texas-Austin. In 1991 and 1992, he designed a study course and guide for Mozart’s Don Giovanni under the auspices of the National Endowment for the Humanities. To date, he has more than 650 published compositions with 47 different publishing houses, as well as numerous unpublished manuscripts. In 1998, Dr. Butler retired from his duties as Director of Choral Activities and Music Theory at Johnson County Community College in Overland Park, Kansas, the conductor of the Johnson County Choirs and as the director of Music and the Arts at Valley View United Methodist Church in Overland Park. Dr. Butler is a busy adjudicator and workshop leader of composition seminars, choral and church music clinics and new music repertory sessions. He has conducted and taught in 39 states, three Canadian provinces and England.

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.

Mark Hayes
Mark earned a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance, magna cum laude from Baylor University. His vocal and instrumental writing is widely acclaimed and performed across the nation. He is well-known for his unique choral settings which draw from such diverse styles such as gospel, jazz, pop, folk, and classical to achieve a truly “American sound”. The popularity of his music is evident in the numerous offers of commissions he receives from universities and churches throughout the country. His Te Deum, for oratorio chorus and orchestra, was commissioned and premiered by Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas, in April, 2004. His works are regularly featured at annual conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and the Music Educators’ National Conference. His personal catalog, compiled over the last 31 years, includes well over 650 published original compositions and arrangements which are distributed by several leading publishers. Hayes has produced and arranged over 50 recordings for various artists and publishers, 32 keyboard folios, and 16 vocal collections.

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.

John Leavitt
John Leavitt is a composer, conductor, teacher, and church musician, whose music continues to captivate listeners and musicians of all ages. He received his undergraduate education at Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas, a masters degree from Wichita State University, and the Doctorate of Musical Arts from The Conservatory of Music at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Leavitt is a lifetime member of the American Choral Directors Association and is a member of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers, from which he has received annual recognition for his achievements. Leavitt was the recipient of the W.A. Young Award for teaching excellence, in recognition of his career at Friends University in the fields of music theory, choral, and church music. John has also served on the faculties of Concordia College, Edmonton, Alberta (Canada), Concordia University, River Forest, Illinois, and Newman University, Wichita, KS. Leavitt currently resides in Wichita, Kansas where he has held the post of music director at Immanuel Lutheran Church and Cantor at Reformation Lutheran Church. He conducted the community choral program, The Master Arts Chorale and Youth Chorale, founded in 1990. In the spring of 2003 he was awarded an artist fellowship for recognition of his work in composition by the Kansas Arts Commission. His music has been performed in 30 countries across the globe and his recordings have been featured nationally on many public radio stations. An extraordinary composer, performer, and clinician for church and school music literature, Leavitt continues to teach, lecture, and guest conduct numerous workshops, festivals, and symposia. He continues to serve as a regular guest conductor in major venues throughout the United States. His compositions are represented in nearly every major music catalog in this country.

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.

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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.

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Acknowledgements and Thanks
Don Crabtree, Chad Crooks, Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church, Teresa Fankhauser, Taylor Glascock, Huffman Memorial United Methodist Church, Keiko Ishida, Diane Jacobs, KFEQ, KQ2, KXCV, Missouri Western State University, St. Joseph News Press, St. Joseph School District, St. Joseph Host Lions Club, Savannah R-III School District, Steve Van Dyke.

Missouri Verses and Voices St. Joseph Leadership Team

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

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
Dr. Tim Mattson, Curriculum and Personnel Director, 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

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

Libraries

• Barb Read, Rolling Hills Library
• Jennifer Halter, SJSD Library Coordinator

Financial Resources
Roger Unruh

Technical Support
Diane Jacobs
Mark Maugh, SJSD

Festival Site Host/Coordinator
Chad Crooks
Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church

versesandvoices.org
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