News & Media

OWU Music Concert Showcases Students, Faculty

Choral Art Ensemble, Chamber Choir, Professors Part of April 9 Performance

DELAWARE, Ohio – Ohio Wesleyan University’s Department of Music will fill Gray Chapel with soaring sound during its upcoming April 9 spring concert.

The free concert, conducted by faculty member Jason Hiester, will begin at 3:15 p.m. April 9 in Gray Chapel inside University Hall, 61 S. Sandusky St., Delaware.

The event will include performances by the Choral Art Ensemble, Chamber Choir, and several student and faculty soloists and accompanists.

The Choral Art Society will perform Paul John Stanbery’s “Music for Mass,” featuring senior tenor Bryson Tarbet and guest pianist Junghwa Lee, as well as selections from Christoph Willibald Gluck’s opera “Orphée,” featuring senior soprano Rachel Ballitch.

The university’s Chamber Choir will perform Dietrich Buxtehude’s “In te Domine speravi,” featuring pianist Junghwa Lee, as well as selections from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Notturni,” featuring guests Cody Grabbe and Bob Pfeifer on clarinet and Antoine T. Clark on bass clarinet.

The concert will conclude with a showcase performance of Spanish composer Enrique Granados’ “Cant De Les Estrelles (Song of the Stars)” by OWU part-time assistant professor Gulimina Mahamuti on piano and guest Janet Guetle on Gray Chapel’s 4,644-pipe Rexford Keller Memorial Organ.

The world is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Granados’s birth this year, and Mahamuti has been performing piano recitals paying tribute to the influential composer and his music. She performs extensively in major cities in the United States, Canada, Denmark, Hungary, Turkey, and China, with broadcasts on radio and state TV. She has given recitals at the invitation of the Turkish Ambassador in Hungary, at Carnegie Hall in New York, at Trinity Church in Boston, and at Memorial Church of Harvard University. Learn more about her at www.gulimina.com.

Hiester, who is directing, is a tenor who performs professionally in genres including opera, oratorio, choral, and jazz. He was a winner of both the Schloss Leopoldskron competition in Salzburg, Austria, and the West Palm Beach Opera Competition. Locally, Hiester is involved with Columbus Opera as Chorus Master.

Learn more about Hiester and Ohio Wesleyan’s Department of Music, including additional upcoming performances, at www.owu.edu/music.

Founded in 1842, Ohio Wesleyan University is one of the nation’s premier liberal arts universities. Located in Delaware, Ohio, the private university offers nearly 90 undergraduate majors and competes in 23 NCAA Division III varsity sports. Through Ohio Wesleyan’s signature OWU Connection program, students integrate knowledge across disciplines, build a diverse and global perspective, and apply their knowledge in real-world settings. Ohio Wesleyan is featured in the book “Colleges That Change Lives,” listed on the latest President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, and included in the U.S. News & World Report and Princeton Review “best colleges” lists. Learn more at www.owu.edu.