Jessica Gondwe Joins Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra in Concert

Soprano Pamela Cooper-White and Organist Mark Mummert Bring Bach, Copeland, Faure and More to Music, Gettysburg! Nov 14

Music, Gettysburg! presents a favorite soprano Pamela Cooper-White and organist and pianist Mark Mummert to the concert stage November 14, 2010 for a concert of Bach, Faure, Copeland and more.

Cooper-White is familiar to Music, Gettysburg! audiences, but this Sunday afternoon concert is her first headline event and one that reunites her with friend and musical collaborator Mark Mummert. They will open the concert with Bach's 'Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor' followed by 'Pie Jesu' from the Faure Requiem. Aaron Copeland's Old American Songs are included in the second half of the concert along with songs of Hugo Wolf and more.

The concert will begin at 4pm in the chapel of the Gettysburg Seminary, 147 Seminary Ridge, in Gettysburg, and is free and open to the public.

Pamela Cooper-White, who for several years sang full time for the San Francisco Opera company, now serves as the Ben G. and Nancye Clapp Gautier Professor of Pastoral Theology, Care and Counseling at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA, and from 1999-2008 served as Professor of Pastoral Theology at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. Prior to her theological credentials, she earned a B.Mus. from Boston University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in musicology from Harvard University, with a dissertation on Arnold Schoenberg's opera Moses und Aron. She studied voice with Wilma Thompson (Boston), Kari Windingstadt (Los Angeles), and Janet Parlova (San Francisco). She was a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, and performed as soloist and in vocal ensembles for the San Francisco Ballet and the American Ballet Theater.

Cooper-White is a familiar soloist with the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra and Music Gettysburg!, having premiered Lynn Gumert's "Mary's Lullaby" with flutist Teresa Bowers on Music Gettysburg!'s Christmas Offering in 2000, and has appeared in solo ensembles on several other Music Gettysburg concerts. She was soprano soloist with the Gettysburg Chamber Orchestra in the Kodaly Te Deum (2005), the J.S. Bach Magnificat (2006), and most recently, Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate, a three-movement cantata for soprano and orchestra, for an all-Mozart program in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the composer's birth. She will also perform as a soloist in the upcoming Music Gettysburg! Christmas Offering on Dec. 19, singing pieces by J.S. Bach and Max Reger.

Mark Mummert is Church Organist and Chorus Director at Christ the King Evangelical Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas. There he conducts the Chorus, the Choristers, the Jr. Choristers, the Taize Ensemble and leads the assembly song at the liturgies of the congregation. Mummert serves as organist for the Bach Society of Houston, and is active in the Association of Lutheran Church Musicans. Prior to his call to Houston, he was Seminary Musician at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia for eighteen years (1990-2008), where he and Cooper-White were musical colleagues in numerous performances. Mummert is a composer of the first setting of Holy Communion in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's core worship resource, Evangelical Lutheran Worship. He has served as Cantor for congregations in Philadelphia, Lancaster, and Glenside Pennsylvania. As a recitalist, Mummert has appeared in programs for the American Guild of Organists and has presented hymn festivals throughout North America. He has appeared in concert with the University of the Arts Chorale, Haddonfield Symphony Chorus, Philadelphia Chamber Chorus, Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, and the Singing City Choir of Philadelphia.

Cooper-White and Mummert will delight the Central Pennsylvania audiences this Sunday in a not to miss concert.

Music, Gettyburg! is a premier free concert series featuring the finest regional, national and international musicians hosted by the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettyburg. The seminary chapel is located at 147 Seminary Ridge on the west edge of Gettysburg. For more information about this and other concerts remaining in the Music, Gettysburg! schedule, please call 717-338-3000 ext 2197 or email info@musicgettysburg.org or visit the web site at www.musicgettysburg.org <http://www.musicgettysburg.org/> .

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