THURSDAY SCHOLARSHIP SERIES
THURSDAY, MARCH 14 at 7:30 p.m.
HODGSON CONCERT HALL
UGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
230 RIVER RD, ATHENS, GA
University of Georgia Hodgson Singers
Daniel Bara, conductor Saeram Jang, pianist
Thursday, March 14, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.
Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall
UGA Performing Arts Center with Elizabeth Johnson Knight, mezzo-soprano
Song of a Dream from The Dreams that Remain Thomas LaVoy
Fern Hill
Elizabeth Johnson Knight, mezzo-soprano
Choose Something Like a Star from Frostiana
John Corigliano
Randall Thompson
My Spirit is Uncaged Paul Rardin
Tu Voz (Your Voice) Shawn Kirchner
Tu sangre en la mia (Your blood is mine)
Hey Nonny, Nonny
Shawn Kirchner
Carl Nygard Jr.
Song of a Dream from The Dreams that Remain Thomas LaVoy
Poetry: Sarojini Naidu (1879-1949)
Once in the dream of a night I stood
Lone in the light of a magical wood, Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang; And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed In that magical wood in the land of sleep.
Lone in the light of that magical grove, I felt the stars of the spirits of Love
Gather and gleam round my delicate youth, And I heard the song of the spirits of Truth; To quench my longing I bent me low
By the streams of the spirits of Peace that flow In that magical wood in the land of sleep.
Fern Hill
Poetry: Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
John Corigliano (b. 1938)
Fern Hill cont.
Flying with the ricks, and the horses Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all Shining, it was Adam and maiden, The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long, In the sun born over and over, I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand, In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means, Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Choose Something Like a Star from Frostiana Randall Thompson (1899-1984)
Poetry: Robert Frost (1874-1963)
O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud—
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says, ‘I burn.’
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
My Spirit is Uncaged
Use language we can comprehend. Tell us what elements you blend.
It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats’ Eremite, Not even stooping from its sphere, It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.
Text: Walt Whitman (1819-1892): Compiled from Leaves of Grass
Oh to make the most jubilant song!
Full of manhood, womanhood, infancy!
Full of common employments – full of grain and trees.
O the joy of my spirit – it is uncaged – it darts like lightning!
It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time, I will have thousands of globes and all times.
Paul Rardin
One’s-Self I sing, a simple separate person; I celebrate myself, and sing myself; A song of the rolling earth, and of words according. I sing the body electric;
I will sing the song of companionship.
Come said the Muse,
Sing me a song no poet yet has chanted, Sing me the universal.
Tu Voz (Your Voice) Shawn Kirchner (b. 1970)
Poetry: Pablo Neruda (1904-1973) from One Hundred Love Sonnets
Translation of Spanish:
Singing unto the sun and sky with your song, your voice threshes the grain of the day, the pines speak with their green tongues, all the birds of winter trill.
The sea fills its cellar with footsteps, with bells, chains, and groans –metal and tools jangle, the wheels of the caravan creak.
But I hear only your voice – it rises with the flight and precision of an arrow, it falls with the gravity of rain,
your voice scatters the highest swords, and returns laden with violets –my companion through the skies.
Tu sangre en la mia (Your blood is mine)
Poetry: Pablo Neruda from One Hundred Love Sonnets
Translation of Spanish:
Here are the bread & wine, the table & the house: a needs of a man, of a woman, of life.
To this place, peace rushed in, whirling round & round. To make this light, a shared fire burned.
Hail to your two hands that fly, making the white creations of kitchen and song.
Hail! the virtue of your busy feet, long live the ballerina who dances with her broom!
Shawn Kirchner
Those rough rivers, with their currents and threat, those tormented pavilions of foam, those hives and reefs aflame:
Today they are this respite of your blood in mine, this path, star-strewn and blue as night, this endless simplicity of tenderness.
Hey Nonny, Nonny
Poetry: William Shakespeare (1564-1616) from Much Ado About Nothing
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny.
Carl Nygard Jr. (b. 1947)
Sing no more ditties, sing no more Of dumps so dull and heavy. The fraud of men was ever so
Since summer first was leafy. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey, nonny, nonny.
Soprano I
Livy Baxley
Ava Bogarde
Zaria Doss
Phoebe Feibus
Hope Fowler
Victoria Goodnature
Cara Jensen
Lauren LaBarre
Joy McCarthy
Grace Ann Miller
Alessandra Sayers
Nova Senkyrick
Meera Srinivasan
Audrey Vazquez
Daniel Bara, conductor Saeram Jang, pianist
Alto
Maddie Alexander
Marianna Baccus
Cameron Coats
Olivia Crerie
Elle Dignam
Sarah Dudley
Nayu Kim
Ally Murari
Danielle Olivares
Lillie Sims
Taya Taylor
De’Nasia Thomas
Marlee VanMullekom
Danielle Vergara
Tenor
Zachary Andersen
Colton Carter
Noah Colwell
Aidan Eclavea
Rayvon Love *
Will Pollard
Julian Riviera
Pierce Roberts
Daniel Shafer *
Demetreon Wells
Bass
JR Banitt
Milo Bauman
Joshua Dixon
Thomas Dixon *
Barrett Meadows
Tyler Newton
Jonas Roemer
Braden Rymer *
Miller Vaughn
Josh Wagner *
* = denotes graduate student conductor
The UGA Hodgson Singers was formed by E. Pierce Arant Jr. in the late 1970’s as The UGA Concert Choir and continues to serve as the flagship ambassadorial choral ensemble of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia. Comprised of UGA’s most gifted and dedicated singers, this ensemble provides vibrant, pre-professional ensemble training for the next generation of professional singers, choral music educators, and talented choral enthusiasts. Membership in the UGA Hodgson Singers is open to all UGA students and celebrates excellent musicianship skills, a sophisticated and flexible vocal technique, thoughtful interpretative ideas, and a passion for music-making.
The ensemble has appeared in concert in recent years with The King’ Singers, Kathleen Battle, Andrea Bocelli, Tenebrae, the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and The Knights Chamber Orchestra. In addition to winning the Grand Prix at the International Choral Competition Ave Verum in 2014 and won 2nd prize at the prestigious Marktoberdorf International Chamber Choir Competition (Germany) in spring of 2023. The choir has performed by invitation at the ACDA Southern Division conventions in 2014, 2018, and 2024, and for the Georgia Music Educators Association In-Service Conference in 2012, 2017, and 2023. Its first professional recording, Grace Immaculate, is distributed by Naxos on the Gothic Records label and is available on all streaming platforms.
The UGA Hodgson Singers is one of seven choirs at the University of Georgia, including the University Chorus, Men’s Glee Club, Women’s Glee Club, Choral Project, Repertory Singers and the African American Choral Ensemble. Each ensemble performs in public concerts each semester, and often combine for major choral- orchestral master work performances. Non-music-majors comprise the bulk of the membership in the choral program, enriching each ensemble with a class profile that represents the full academic and cultural diversity of the university as a whole.
Daniel Bara is the John D. Boyd UGA Foundation Professor of Choral Music and the Director of Choral Activities and Professor of Music at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music at the University of Georgia where he oversees seven university choral ensembles as well as the graduate choral conducting program. His university choirs have performed by juried invitation for state, regional, and national conventions of ACDA, MENC, and IMC and in prestigious international choral competitions abroad.
The UGA Hodgson Singers under Bara’s direction won the Grand Prix at the International Choral Competition Ave Verum in Baden, Austria in 2014 and has performed at Southern Division ACDA Conventions in 2014 and 2018 and presently at the 2024 conference in Louisville, KY. In May of 2023 the UGA Hodgson Singers won 2nd prize at the prestigious Marktoberdorf International Chamber Choir Competition in Germany, where their performances were categorized as “Excellent on an International Level.” Their 2017 Gothic Records professional recording, Grace Immaculate, is distributed internationally by Naxos. Recent professional collaborations between Bara and the UGA Hodgson Singers include performances with Kathleen Battle, Andrew Bocelli, The Knights Chamber Orchestra, internationally acclaimed vocal sextet The King’s Singers with whom they premiered a jointly commissioned piece by Nico Muhly in 2018, the acclaimed British professional choir, Tenebrae, the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
Prior to his appointment at UGA, Dr. Bara was the Director of Choral Activities at East Carolina University, where he received the UNC Board of Governors Distinguished Professor for Teaching Award and the Robert L. Jones Award for Outstanding Teaching, and released two internationally distributed choral recordings, Greater Love (2007) and Eternal Light (2010) with Gothic Records. In 2001 he won the Walter Hagen Conducting Prize given at the Eastman School of Music, and the ACDA National Student Conducting Competition (Graduate Division) awarded at the National Convention in San Antonio, TX.
Dr. Bara is in regular demand as a guest conductor and clinician, having conducted all-state and honor choirs in 20 states and Carnegie Hall, and has served as clinician for conferences sponsored by NAfME, ACDA, AGO, and other school and church musical organizations. He is a past-president of NC-ACDA, has held the Artistic Directorship of the New York State Summer School of the Arts – School of Choral Studies (2007-2009), and has served as conductor of the World Youth Honor Choir at Interlochen Arts Camp (2004-2006).
Dr. Bara holds the DMA degree in conducting from the Eastman School of Music, organ and conducting degrees from the University of Michigan, and is a graduate of Interlochen Arts Academy. At UGA, Dr. Bara conducts the UGA Hodgson Singers, and oversees the graduate conducting student recital choir, The Repertory Singers.
Elizabeth Johnson Knight, American mezzo soprano, is in demand as both a choral and solo artist. She made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2010 as alto soloist in Handel’s Messiah with Andrew Megill and the Masterwork Chorus. Recent appearances include the role of Madame de Croissy in Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites with Louisiana Opera and guest solo appearances with the Duke Vespers Ensemble and the University of Illinois Chamber Singers/Sinfonia da Camera. Elizabeth has also sung in professional choral ensembles across the United States, including Orpheus Chamber Singers, Tennessee Chamber Chorus, Vox Humana, Kinnara Ensemble, and the South Dakota Chorale. She is a long-time member of the Chorale of the Carmel Bach Festival. She has recorded with many of these ensembles, including the GRAMMY-nominated Tyberg: Masses album with South Dakota Chorale.
Knight joined the faculty of the University of Georgia’s Hugh Hodgson School of Music in 2016 after holding teaching positions at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, the University of Louisiana, Monroe, Murray State University, the University of North Texas, and Richland College. She is a 2022 recipient of UGA’s Sandy Beaver Excellence in Teaching Award. In addition to private voice, she has taught English, Italian, French, and German Diction, Vocal Pedagogy, and Opera Workshop. Her research interests include assessment techniques for the applied studio and the effects of posture on the acoustics of the singing voice. She has published research in Journal of Voice and has presented papers at the New Voice Educators’ Symposium, the Texoma NATS Artist Series, and the Performing Arts Medicine Association Symposium. Elizabeth is a graduate of the University of North Texas (DMA), Indiana University (MM), and the University of Mississippi (BM).
This event is presented by the Hugh Hodgson School of Music and by the UGA Humanities Council as part of the UGA Humanities Festival.
Visit willson.uga.edu to learn more
FRI 3/15
12:40 p.m.
MLC Room, 250
LECTURE
MON 3/18
6 p.m.
Ciné
THIS EVENT IS FREE
TUE 3/19
5 p.m.
School of Art, S151
VISITING ARTIST LECTURE
TUE 3/19
7 p.m.
Ciné
THIS EVENT IS FREE
We bark. It’s what Dawgs do. Some folks don’t get it, but you do. Barking is about pride. It’s about community. And when we bark together, amazing things happen.
That’s why, on March 26, we’re Calling the Dawgs for the University of Georgia’s Dawg Day of Giving!
For 24 hours, Bulldogs around the world are celebrating everything that makes it great to be a Georgia Bulldog—and building the future of UGA while we’re at it. We’re challenging you to answer the call, donate to any area at UGA, and show the world that nobody supports their school like the Bulldogs.
This is an all-paws-on-deck situation: students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends are joining in, so if you call yourself a Bulldog, we’re calling on you. With the Bulldog Nation on our side, we can hit our 10,000 donor goal, put generations of students on a path to prosper, and build a better tomorrow for our university, our state, our nation and our world.
In addition to our primary Support and Scholarship Funds, many specialized areas of interest, including our choral programs, have support and scholarship funds you can contribute to as well. Every fund that receives a gift on March 26 is counted for UGA's goals for Dawg Day of Giving.
Scan the QR code or visit music.uga.edu/giving to select a fund and make a donation on March 26, or any day, to the support the Hugh Hodgson School of Music area of your choice. For large gifts or concert underwriting, please contact Melissa Roberts at: 706-254-2111 or roberts@uga.edu
Thank you for your continued support of the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music.
TUE 3/19
7:30 p.m.
Ramsey Hall
$3 - students with valid UGA ID
$15 - adults
With Timothy Lovelace on piano. Includes three world premieres: AndaCryCamefromthe Peopleforviola&piano by Mary Kouyoumdjian, VariationsonaFeeling(Chaconne)forviolaalone by Tessa Lark, and Sakori Dixon Vanderveer’s Bagatelles forStrings,I.Prelude.
THURS 3/21 & FRI 3/22
7:30 p.m.
Hodgson Hall
$20 - adults
$3 - students w/valid UGA ID
Adapted from Georges Bizet’s opera by Marius Constant, Jean-Claude Carriére, and Peter Brook. This version draws on the original novella for dramatic inspiration to create a more intimate and emotionally raw exploration of these familiar characters.
MON 3/25
7:30 p.m.
Hodgson Hall
$3 - students with a valid UGA ID
$15 - adults
The program includes the beloved Tchaikovsky’s “Souvenir de Florence” in orchestral version and USA premiere of “The Brazilian Four Season” by Dimitri Cervo. In this context, romantic doesn’t just refer to the Romantic period, but to the depth of dramatic character of any music, person, or story.
