Macon Magazine

August/September 2021

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"letter" A Word from the Dean Mercer University Townsend School of Music | music.mercer.edu On behalf of the Townsend School of Music at Mercer University, it is my honor to welcome you to the 2021-2022 Discover Townsend concert series. The School of Music promises to bring to Macon and Middle Georgia a plethora of concerts and recitals in all music genres. After a year of dealing with the pandemic, we are returning to live performances in what promises to be one of the most exciting years in our history. Since the inception of Discover Townsend, we have had fantastic community support, and I would anticipate that the 2021-2022 season will be one filled with expectancy of great music and tremendous patronage from our constituents. This year will feature an abundance of talent performing in the McCorkle Music Building's intimate Neva Langley Fickling Hall, the stunning Bell House Jennings Salon, and the recently renovated Grand Opera House. It is a year filled with outstanding guest and faculty recitalists, ensemble concerts, and Fabian Series concerts featuring a wide array of distinguished artists. Through the generosity of philanthropist Jo Phelps Fabian, the inaugural concerts of the Fabian Center for Musical Excellence will include the world-famous Canadian Brass; VOCES8; an evening of word and music presented by Paula D'Arcy, Ken Medema, and Benjamin Mertz; and a concluding concert by pianist Robert Blocker, Dean of the Yale School of Music. The 2021-2022 season will also feature the newly formed Macon Mercer Symphony Orchestra comprised of students from the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings and winds and brass players from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. Repertoire will include standard pieces by essential classical composers, as well as works by a wide range of contemporary composers from diverse backgrounds, reflecting the true breadth and depth of symphonic music today. Choices of musical enlightenment abound in the 2021-2022 season. Whether you choose to attend concerts of chamber music, instrumental and choral ensembles, jazz, opera, the Godsey Keyboard Series, the Fabian Series featuring world-class strings, or concerts sponsored by the Fabian Center for Musical Excellence, your musical palettes will be filled with extraordinary colors. The arts are critical as they fill our souls with beauty, imagination, and transformation while helping us to become more human. Bill O'Brien writes, "To me, the arts matter because they illuminate signals in the noise to help us navigate through life conscientiously, with a deeper understanding of ourselves in broader contexts. Art matters because it teaches us why we matter." I invite you to Discover Townsend as you lose yourself through the transformative power of music, and in doing so, confirm that MUSIC MATTERS AT MERCER! C. David Keith, Dean Townsend School of Music

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