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Choral Music Festival Closes With Free Concert Oct. 22


Last updated October 19, 2016

By Tina Underwood

The Furman Fall Festival of Choral Music will close with a concert on Saturday, Oct. 22, at 3 p.m. in McAlister Auditorium on the Furman University campus.

The concert is free and open to the public.

For the festival, singers from high school programs in the region are invited to participate with mixed quartets of their finest singers. These groups practice and perform under the baton of Furman Singers director and department chair Dr. Hugh Ferguson Floyd who leads Saturday’s culminating concert with the high school vocalists and Furman Singers.

Combined, the Furman Singers and High School Festival Choir number nearly 140 voices. Performing a mix of traditional sacred anthems, spirituals, and secular settings of significant poetry, the choirs will be accompanied by Furman senior Kevin Edens (Marietta, S.C.) and Furman Music Professor Dr. Vivian Hamilton.

Repertoire for the event includes “Cantate Domino” by Hans Leo Hassler; “Three Madrigals” by Emma Lou Diemer; “Sim Shalom” by John Leavitt, and “I hear America Singing” by André Thomas.

Floyd, the Bingham L. Vick, Jr. and Judith S. Vick Professor of Music at Furman, serves as Coordinator of Choral Music at Furman and Director of the Furman Singers. In July 2016, he began his tenure as chair of the Furman Department of Music. Prior to his appointment at Furman, he served as Director of Choral Studies at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music at Oberlin College. He has also been a guest lecturer at the Eastman School of Music and Yale University. Floyd served as Director of Choral Activities and Voice Instructor at the famed Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan and taught at the Interlochen Arts Academy. Floyd is a graduate of Furman (Class of 1984), the Eastman School of Music, and the University of Michigan.

For more information about the event, contact the Furman University Music Department at (864) 294-2086, or email the department at FurmanMusic@furman.edu.

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