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OBU Division of Music Anticipates Oratorio This Fall

September 1, 2001

Two choral classics united under the direction of a noted conductor will comprise the Oklahoma Baptist University division of music's fall Oratorio, Oct. 5.

The 8 p.m. presentation in refurbished Potter Auditorium will feature Dr. Timothy Stalter, director of choral activities at the University of Iowa, conducting Giacomo Puccini's Messa di Gloria and Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms.

Dr. John Simons, OBU associate professor of church music and director of the Bison Glee Club, will serve as rehearsal conductor.

The division of music performs a major oratorio work for chorus, soloists, and orchestra every other fall. Recent Oratorio projects have included Handel's Messiah in 1999, and William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, in 1997.

Stalter is active as a tenor soloist in the U.S. and abroad in addition to his career of conducting and teaching choral music. He is widely known for his performances as the Evangelist in the Passions of J.S. Bach and Heinrich Schuetz.

His other solo credits include appearances as tenor soloist with the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra, the North Carolina Symphony, the Robert Shaw Festival Singers in France, the Robert Shaw Chamber Choir in Atlanta, the Classical Music Seminar and Festival in Eisenstadt, Austria, and the Shenandoah Valley Bach Festival.

In July 1999, he was a featured soloist in Haydn's Creation for the International Cathedral Music Festival in England.

He also has recorded two albums with Robert Shaw, Amazing Grace and Songs of Angels.

Stalter received his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in choral conducting under Robert Fountain. He earned a master's degree in choral music from the University of Illinois at Urbana and a bachelor's degree in voice performance from Goshen College.

For more information concerning the performance, contact the division of music at 878-2306 or email music@mail.okbu.edu.