Sounds of autumn: ABAC has two free fall concerts coming up
Performances are scheduled for Thursday and Tuesday nights
From Staff Reports
TIFTON — The music of autumn will be in the air in Tifton with two free concerts scheduled for Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College.
On Thursday, the ABAC Concert Choir will present its fall concert at 7 p.m. at Howard Auditorium on campus. Susan Roe, head of the fine arts department, director of choral music and a professor of voice, will direct the choir.
The choir will perform three selections by publisher, arranger and composer Earlene Rentz, including “Gaudeamus Hodie,” “Prayer of Peace,” featuring Tonja Howard, a biology major from Sumner, on flute, and “Cotton Fields” performed by the ABAC Chamber Singers with the ABAC Jazz Combo.
Rentz also will be the featured composer for Choral Day on Nov. 9, where area high schools and their choral directors will study under the clinician before joining ABAC musical groups in an afternoon concert featuring some of the composer’s pieces.
Other selections for the Concert Choir’s performances include “The Star-Spangled Banner” arranged by Darmon Meader, and Zoe Hobby’s arrangement of ABAC’s Alma Mater, composed by Wayne Jones and the late Libby Campbell. The choir will be accompanied by Andy Lagrimas, assistant professor of piano and theory for the ABAC music program.
Additional pieces will include Aaron Copeland’s “Ching-A-Ring Chaw,” “Same Train” by Alice Parker and Robert Shaw, and George Frederic Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus” from “Messiah.”
That will be followed at 7 p.m. Tuesday with ABAC’s First Tuesday Concert Series performance “A Night of Jazz Featuring ABAC Alumni.” That concert will be at the Chapel of All Faiths at ABAC.
Thomas Heflin, ABAC assistant professor of jazz, will headline the concert on trumpet. Heflin, who directs the ABAC Jazz Ensemble, will be joined by two ABAC Jazz Ensemble alumni, Kenyon Carter on saxophone and Andrew Hill on trombone.
The rhythm section will be comprised of Mason Margut on piano, Rodney Jordan on bass, and Rowan Cowan on drums. Current jazz ensemble students will also be included in the performance. Heflin and company will perform a mixture of jazz standards and originals during the evening’s event.
The First Tuesday series, now in its 16th year, features regional professional artists on the first Tuesdays of five months during the year. Roe is the First Tuesday program director.
Carter is a musician who performs in the Atlanta area; Hill serves as assistant director of bands and jazz ensemble director at Valdosta High School; Jordan is associate professor of jazz studies at Florida State University, and Margut and Cowan are FSU students and musicians from the Tallahassee area.
Both performances have free admission.
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