Mississippi College Singers Performing at New York’s Lincoln Center

The Mississippi College Singers will be joined by choruses from five states in a January 15, 2012 concert at New York City’s famed Lincoln Center.

“It is a rare privilege to perform on one of the world’s great concert stages – Avery Fisher Hall,” says James Meaders, the university’s Music Department chairman whose baton will guide the MC Singers that Sunday afternoon.

Fifty-six MC Singers will join choruses from Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina and New York during the 2 p.m. performance. Among the Mississippians blending their voices will be a select group of 20 girls from Clinton Junior High and Sumner Hill Junior High. Members of the Mississippi Girlchoir will also join the large musical lineup at Avery Fisher Hall.

Located on a 16-acre urban campus, Lincoln Center is considered the world’s leading performing arts center, uniting 11 of the finest performing arts and educational organizations.

For MC Singer Anne Marie Parke, 18, it will mark a return trip for a second major concert at a famous New York venue.  As a junior with Clinton High’s Arrow Singers, Parke was part of a combined musical effort with the MC Singers and others at the Big Apple’s legendary Carnegie Hall in early 2010.

Parke says she’s thrilled to be going back for another NYC concert and a chance to soak up a few of the city’s vast cultural attractions. “We will have a couple of free days and I will go to see a couple of musicals like the Lion King and I want to see Chinatown,” says the daughter of Mississippi College professors Ivan and Mary Ann Parke.

The MC Singers will leave the Magnolia State January 11, spend two days rehearsing with an orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall prior to the concert and they’re scheduled to see attractions like the recently opened 911 Memorial.

Others on the Avery Fisher Hall stage will be two soloists, Mississippi College voice professor Kristen Johnson and 2010 MC vocal performance graduate Jay Carr. A Brandon High alumnus, Carr is a 33-year-old graduate student at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music in New York. The bass soloist who’s now living in Brooklyn will sing John Rutter’s “Mass of the Children.”

Carr played leading roles in productions like “The Sound of Music” and “Oklahoma” as an MC undergraduate. He can expect to see plenty of Mississippi faces in the audience again. The singer will be joined by plenty of family members and friends at the New York concert.

“To have a child perform at Lincoln Center leaves me speechless,” says his mother, Medero Carr of Brandon, who’s booked to make the 1,000-mile journey. “We are extremely proud of Jay and all the Singers.”

Carr performed at Carnegie Hall as a member of the MC Singers in 2010.

Other proud Mississippi parents include Steve and Cindy Stanford. Their 12-year-old daughter, Tess, a 7^th grader at Clinton Junior High, will be among 20 students from the Clinton public schools, to perform at the Lincoln Center concert.

“This trip is going to be awesome,” Tess Stanford says. “We are so excited about this chance to go to New York and sing with college choirs,” adds Tess, whose father is a Mississippi College administrator and mother is a Clinton teacher.

In recent weeks, the talented singers in the 7^th, 8^th and 9^th grades have worked hard with Tammy Carney, director of choral music with Clinton Junior High, to get ready.

The daughter of MC music professor Lewis Oswalt, freshman Leah Oswalt is among other Clintonians making the New York concert date with the MC Singers.

The MC Singers will perform such major works as “Chichester Psalms” by Leonard Bernstein and “Gloria” by Randol Bass.

The upcoming journey to New York is among several long-distance concert trips for the MC Singers in recent years. Making their third international trip since 2004, 35 members of the award-winning group traveled to South Africa for four concerts in May 2011. In May 2008, the MC Singers visited Europe for a concert tour.

For additional information, contact Dottie Serio at the MC Department of Music at 601.925.3440.