OPERAPALOOZA! Music City Community Chorus Announces June 5 Concert

May 2007 (NASHVILLE) - The Music City Community Chorus presents OPERAPALOOZA!: a free concert of Chorus Music by the Great Opera Composers, on Tuesday evening, June 5 at 7:30 pm at First Baptist Church, Broadway and 7th Avenue in Nashville.

For the new Music City Community Chorus’ second outing, conductor Renee Grant-Williams chose to present works by composers rarely heard in a choral setting. OPERAPALOOZA!: Chorus Music by the Great Opera Composers will include operatic favorites Giuseppi Verdi’s “Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves” from Nabucco, “Regina Coeli” from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, and the “Anvil Chorus,” from Il Trovatore, also by Verdi.

The featured work of the evening will be the Stabat Mater by Gioacchino Rossini.

“Rossini’s Stabat Mater has excruciatingly beautiful melodies, but there may be reasons this exquisite piece is not often performed,” says Grant-Williams, “It demands precise, but passionate, ensemble work throughout. And, of course, a tenor who can sustain a high D flat.”

Mayor Bill Purcell announced the formation of the non-profit Music City Community Chorus back in August of 2006, placing the sixty-voice chorus under the umbrella of the Metro Nashville Community Education program.

“I’m amazed by how quickly this diverse group of singers has developed into an ensemble that has an identity and sound,” says director Renee Grant-Williams.

Widely known as a vocal coach, Grant-Williams’ conducting credits include positions as founder and director of the San Francisco Community Chorus; director, Student Division of Vocal Music at the University of California, Berkeley; chorus master, Opera Division, Banff School of Fine Arts; and choir director Second Presbyterian Church, Nashville.

OPERAPALOOZA! is free to the public. Parking is available at the back and sides of First Baptist Church (Broadway and Seventh Avenue). The concert begins promptly at 7:30 pm on Tuesday, June 5. Call 615/259-4900 for interviews or additional information. www.MusicCityCommunityChorus.org

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