Approximately 150 high school students will be on the Lee University campus to participate in the annual Honor Choir on Friday and Saturday, Feb. 7-8. Each member of the choir was selected by a high school director to represent their school on the collegiate stage.
The event will culminate in a performance Saturday at 3 p.m. in the Conn Center. In addition to the Honor Choir, the Lee University Choral Union, conducted by Dr.
Cameron LaBarr, will perform several pieces for the high school participants and audience.
The students will rehearse choral music under the direction of School of Music faculty Drs. William Green, Cameron F. LaBarr and Jonathan Rodgers. The students are grouped into a men’s and a women’s choir to study, rehearse and eventually perform the selected choral pieces, with the entire group coming together for a mixed choir experience.
Green is a professor of choral music, conducts the Lee University Chorale, and serves as Dean of the School of Music. Green is active nationally and internationally as a guest conductor, adjudicator and clinician. He has presented workshops throughout the United States, as well as in Central America and Israel, and most recently conducted Lee’s Festival Choir at the 2013 Presidential Inauguration.
LaBarr joined the Lee faculty in fall 2011 as an assistant professor of choral music and director of Choral Union. LaBarr was recently awarded a fellowship to attend and participate in the Salzburg (Austria) Global Forum for Young Cultural Leaders. LaBarr was selected as one of 50 attendees from a pool of candidates from around the world.
Rodgers, who joined the Lee faculty in fall 2013, holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting from the University of Southern Mississippi, a Master of Music in Church Music and Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Samford University. While at Samford, he studied conducting with Milburn Price. As a member of the American Choral Directors Association, Rodgers has been guest speaker and presenter at the Chicago National ACDA and Mississippi MENC/ACDA conferences.
The concert is open to the public and free of charge.
For more information, contact LuAnn Holden at lholden@leeuniversity.edu or423-614-8259.