Henderson State University’s Department of Music will present its annual President’s Concert at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2 in the Russell Fine Arts Harwood Recital Hall. The program features student soloists selected as winners of a competition in November.
“The opportunity for some of our best students to perform solo works accompanied by an orchestra, including members of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, is one of the highlights of our entire year,” said Dr. Steve Becraft, coordinator of the competition.
The concert will also honor Dr. Kay McAfee, retired professor of organ and music history at Henderson.
Soloists include:
- Morgan Lee, a soprano from Malvern, who will perform “Batti, batti o bel Masetto” from Mozart’s Don Giovannie.
- Luke Fields, a saxophonist from New Boston, Texas, will perform the first movement of Ibert’s Concertino da Camera.
- Zaquary Hale, a flutist from Bryant, will perform Otar Gordeli’s Concertino for Flute.
Competition judges also awarded honorable mention to Emelia Adams a hornist from Arkadelphia.
McAfee is a 1968 graduate of Henderson, and attained the advanced degrees of Masters and Doctorate at the Eastman School of Music and the University of North Texas.
She established the Mae Whipple, Robert Ellis, Wayne McAfee, and Kay McAfee Alumni Funds. The Whipple Fund has supported the President’s Concert every year.
In her professional career, McAfee performed throughout the South, was organist and pianist for numerous large choral offerings and solo recitals, and was a featured artist at American Guild of Organists (AGO) Regional Conventions. She has written articles for The Diapason, the French Organ Music Seminars to England and France, reviews of AGO conventions, and the chronicling of the history of the Central Arkansas Chapter of the AGO at its 50th anniversary.
McAfee has served as rehearsal and performance pianist for six Henderson drama department musicals since her retirement, and has served as organist for numerous Henderson choir concerts. She contributes funding for the Henderson Opera Workshop and theatre department.
In 2007, she was inducted into the Henderson Academy by her peers and colleagues in the music department, and, in 2010, was named a Distinguished Alumna of Henderson. In 2016, she and four of her former students performed an organ recital as part of the Sesquicentennial observance of Henderson.
McAfee currently serves as organist and children’s choir accompanist for First United Methodist Church of Arkadelphia.
She and her husband Wayne, a former professor of art at Henderson, have two daughters, Lee and Rachael.
The concert is free and open to the public.
For more information, contact Becraft at 230-5412 or becrafs@hsu.edu.