The Chanticleer

Issue date: 3/17/05 Section: Features

Media Credit: Michelle Morgan In tuxes and black dresses, a combined choir including JSU students and community members performed Mozart´s Requiem.

Tuesday night at First United Methodist Church in Anniston, the Calhoun County Civic Chorale and the Jacksonville State A Cappella Choir presented Mozart's Requiem.
Directed by Dr. Patricia Corbin and accompanied by an orchestra consisting of JSU students and faculty instrumentalists and members of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra, the choirs performed Requiem in its traditional Latin form. The concert was dedicated to Dr. James Fairleigh, a former head of the music department, who recently passed away.
Dr. Corbin, JSU Director of Chorale Activities, remembered Dr. Fairleigh as being "enthusiastic" when she joined the music department staff. She said, "Dr. Fairleigh was an organist and would have loved to play in the concert." Since the requiem is used in the Roman Catholic Church as a Mass for the dead, Dr. Corbin said, "It seems fitting to dedicate the concert to him."
The choirs have been working on the music for months. "The music is pretty difficult," Dr. Corbin said. "It is above average but very well written, so it is fun to sing. It requires good vocal technique." All sections of the choir have solo moments in the music, so no one section is more important than any other. "There are two aspects to the music. One is comforting and commemorating, and the other is facing the last judgment, when your sins are presented. It has a fire and brimstone feel," said Dr. Corbin. Her favorite part of Requiem is the opening because it sets the mood with its ominous character.
Also participating in the concert were several JSU alumni: Teresa Cheatham-Stricklin, soprano and a current voice professor here at JSU; Kenneth Shaw, bass-baritone and professor of voice at Cincinnati Conservatory of Music; and Steve Simmons, tenor and graduate student in the voice program at the University of Georgia. They were joined by Kathryn Hartgrove, mezzo-soprano and voice professor at Georgia State University. There was also a flute concerto composed by a colleague of Mozart performed by Kelly Crotts, JSU's professor of flute.

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