“The Hottest Guitarist in the World” and a Songstress with a Touch of “Evil” Highlight February

Clayton State University’s Spivey Hall (www.spiveyhall.org), the Southeast’s premier recital hall renowned internationally for its superior acoustics and the excellence of its classical, jazz and world music artists, today announced February programming details for the 25th anniversary season’s Spivey Series and Young People’s Concerts. Fierce jazz songstress René Marie channels the late Eartha Kitt in her program I Wanna Be Evil (With Love to Eartha Kitt), while emerging classical guitarist Miloš Karadaglić – whom The Daily Mail labeled a “symphonic sex symbol” – showcases his dazzling stylistic versatility in his first Atlanta-area recital.

“Every season we take great pleasure in welcoming artists both familiar and new to Spivey Hall,” noted Executive and Artistic Director Sam Dixon. “Our February recitals by Miloš and pianist Igor Levit are especially highly anticipated. Their careers are skyrocketing in different yet unquestionably innovative and distinctive ways, and their performances are not to be missed.”

The Season 25 Spivey Series will thrill opera fans looking for the next great talent with The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions on February 9. Rene Marié steams up the Hall on February 12, and Miloš Karadaglić, known simply now as “Miloš” to his ardent fans, makes his Spivey Hall debut on February 13. Igor Levit, the 26-year-old German-Russian pianist whom the L.A. Times has called “the future,” also makes his Atlanta and Spivey Hall debut on February 20. The St. Lawrence String Quartet revisits Spivey Hall on February 21; the Orange County Register calls them “the most exciting string quartet working today.” Organist Alan Morrison  continues Season 25 residency in a solo program which, performed on the magnificent 4,413-pipe Albert Schweitzer Memorial Organ, is sure to leave the audience breathless.

Spivey Hall Education continues its presentations in February with four concerts in Spivey Hall’s Young People’s Concert Series, providing affordable and educational opportunities for music lovers of any age. In February, students will have the opportunity to experience a diverse range of musical genres and artists, including classical organ of the Baroque period and Russian folk tunes played on balalaikas.

With free parking and close proximity to Atlanta, Spivey Hall’s 392-seat auditorium is the perfect option for an intimate music experience. For full program details for all performances, tickets or more information, call the Spivey Hall Box Office at (678) 466-4200, or visit www.spiveyhall.org. In addition to the standard ticket pricing indicated for each performance, there is a 50 percent discount available to students and Georgia educators with ID. Discounted tickets are available only through the box office, which is open Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Spivey Hall 25th Season Series

Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions

Sunday, February 7, 2016 at 2:00 p.m.

The finest opera vocalists from North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida and Georgia take the stage at Spivey Hall to compete for a chance at the national finals at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The afternoon performance is a wonderful opportunity for the opera fan who wants to catch the next rising star. Winners of the Southeast Auditions will be announced following deliberations by a distinguished panel of judges: San Francisco Opera Artistic Administrator Greg Henkel, Academy of Vocal Arts Music Director Christopher Macatsoris, and Knoxville Opera Music Director Andrew Wentzel.

Tickets are priced at $40 (with discounts for subscribers, groups, students and Georgia educators), and are available for purchase now.

René Marie: I Wanna Be Evil (With Love to Eartha Kitt)

Friday, February 12, 2016 at 8:15 p.m.

The provocative and fearless jazz singer presents a program in tribute to the divine Eartha Kitt. “René Marie pretty much reduced her audience to stunned, delighted silence. That is, when people weren’t cheering her, leaping up, or clamoring for yet another delectable morsel” (The Times Picayune). The program includes such Kitt classics as “I Wanna Be Evil,” “Let’s Do It,” and her signature “Santa Baby.”

Tickets are priced at $40 (with discounts for subscribers, groups, students and Georgia educators), and are available for purchase now.

Rene Marié’s Spivey Hall performance is made possible through the generosity of Spivey Hall Friends Concert Sponsors Mary Jane Robertson and James A. Clark.

Miloš Karadaglić, guitar

Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.

Dubbed “the hottest guitarist in the world” by The Sunday Times, Montenegrin Miloš Karadaglić makes his Spivey Hall debut in a recital showing why the BBC in a 2014 article referred to him as “the most powerful ambassador for the classical guitar on the planet…fast on his way to becoming as significant an icon for his generation as Julian Bream and John Williams were to theirs.” Whether performing for an audience of thousands in the Royal Albert Hall or an intimate chamber music performance for 100 people, Karadaglić is as comfortable and engaging playing in major concert halls as he is in non-traditional venues such as New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, London’s Camden Roundhouse (iTunes Festival) and Deutsche Grammophon’s Yellow Lounge club nights. His latest recording, Blackbird – The Beatles Album, featuring collaborations with vocalist Gregory Porter, the Navarra String Quartet, and other classical and world music stars, was released in early January.

Tickets are priced at $40 (with discounts for subscribers, groups, students and Georgia educators), and are available for purchase now.

Miloš Karadaglić’s Spivey Hall performance is made possible through the generosity of Spivey Hall Friends Concert Sponsors George and Stephanie Shepherd.

Igor Levit, piano

Saturday, February 20, 2016 at 7:30 p.m.

“A major new pianist has arrived,” proclaimed The New York Times of Igor Levit, who makes his Spivey Hall debut performing a program of Bach (Partita No. 4 in D major, BWV 828), Schubert (Moments musicaux, D. 780), Beethoven (Sonata in D minor, Op. 31 No. 2, “The Tempest”) and Prokofiev (his monumentally dramatic Sonata No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83).

Of his Beethoven performances, The New Yorker also said “Levit…shows an extraordinary ability to coax a singing line from the piano, and he introduces myriad subtleties into the purr of counterpoint, often inserting elegant little ornaments on the repeats. The effect is of strong emotion held in check by a magisterial intellect.”

Tickets are priced at $50 (with discounts for subscribers, groups, students and Georgia educators), and are available for purchase now.

A dinner prior to the performance is available for an additional fee of $40 per person. The dinner will be held at 5:45 p.m. in the Harry S. Downs Education Center; price includes entrée, beverage and dessert. The deadline for purchasing dinner tickets is noon on Monday, February 15, 2016. Advanced purchase through the box office is required; dinners may not be purchased the day of concert.

Program notes and Audio Web Notes, providing detailed background and synopsis information, will be available prior to the concert at www.spivey.org. Audio Web notes are online program notes enriched by short music samples that give patrons the chance to hear what the program notes are talking about.

Igor Levit’s Spivey Hall performance is made possible through the generosity of Spivey Hall Friends Concert Sponsors Bill and Rachel Schultz.

St. Lawrence String Quartet

Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 3:00 p.m.

Pre-concert Talk at 2:00 p.m.

Called “witty, buoyant, and wickedly attentive” (The Gazette), with a “peerless” sense of ensemble (Financial Times), the SLSQ is celebrated for its “smoldering intensity” (Washington Post), and “flexibility, dramatic fire and… hint of rock ‘n’ roll energy” (LA Times). In recent seasons, the SLSQ has paid special attention to Joseph Haydn with a series of concerts in which the foursome explores and unpacks the composer’s string quartets from various perspectives (“Haydn Discoveries”) and then performs the works in their entirety. Founding member Geoff Nuttall explains, “To be really devastated by the genius of Haydn’s music, the performers and audiences have to be connected…exploring the material in a really active way.”

The Quartet’s Spivey Hall program features Nuttall leading an SLSQ “Haydn Discovery” of the “Emperor” Quartet Op. 76 No. 3, with commentary and musical illustrations culminating in a complete performance; plus John Adams’s Second Quartet (2014), composed for and premiered by the SLSQ, and Haydn’s high-spirited Quartet Op. 20 No. 6.

Tickets are priced at $60 (with discounts for subscribers, groups, students and Georgia educators), and are available for purchase now. A pre-concert talk with Clayton State music faculty member Dr. Kurt-Alexander Zeller begins at 2:00 p.m. and is included in the ticket price.

Program notes and Audio Web Notes will be available prior to the concert at www.spivey.org.

The Saint Lawrence String Quartet’s Spivey Hall performance is made possible through the generosity of Spivey Hall Friends Concert Sponsors Tedd and Cookie Mendelsohn and John W. Markham III.

Alan Morrison, organ

Saturday, February 27, 2016 at 3:00 p.m.

Recognized as one of America’s premier organists, Spivey Hall’s new organist-in-residence has been called “visionary in his choice of colors and ability to shape music into lucid forms…[with] plenty of bravura when called for” (The Birmingham News). He is a champion of twentieth- and twenty-first-century composers, personally introducing their works to audiences in recitals and concerts, and enjoys collaborating with vocalists and other instrumentalists in chamber programs.

For his Season 25 solo recital, Morrison will perform Bach’s iconic Prelude and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, which opens with what is arguably the world’s most recognized music for organ; Mozart’s Fantasy in F minor, K. 608; works by English (Alfred Hollins, Samuel Sebastian Wesley), American (Horatio Parker), and Spanish (Juan Bautista José Cabanilles) composers; plus the Symphonic Choral, “Jesu, meine Freude,” by German composer/organist Sigfrid Karg-Elert. Morrison will introduce these works with comments from the stage in the course of his performance.

Morrison is the Head of the Organ Department at The Curtis Institute of Music, Associate Professor of Organ at Westminster Choir College of Rider University and College Organist at Ursinus College. He frequently conducts master classes sponsored by the American Guild of Organists.

Tickets are priced at $30 (with discounts for subscribers, groups, students and Georgia educators), and are available for purchase now.

Alan Morrison’s recital has been graciously sponsored by anonymous Spivey Hall Friends Concert Sponsors in memory of Spivey Hall’s first organist-in-residence, Richard Morris. Alan Morrison’s Season 25 residency is made possible through the generosity of Spivey Hall Friends Arne Troelstra and Kate Troelstra.

Spivey Hall Young People’s Concerts

Spivey Hall’s Young People’s Concerts (YPC) are an integral part of its education program; the concerts are 45-50 minutes in length and designed for audience interaction. Educators and parents are asked to note carefully the performance times and recommended grade levels for each program. There will be study guides correlated to the curriculum (GPS and CCGPS) with a concentration on STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics).

While the concerts are intended for children and youth in pre-K to grade 12, Spivey Hall welcomes community members of all ages to the performances.

Concerts cost just $2 in advance at the box office, $3 in advance online and $5 at the door.

Complete information on YPCs and Spivey Hall’s education program is available at www.spiveyhall.org.

Many Ways to Count: Mr. Greg’s Musical Madness

Tuesday, February 16, 2016 at 9:45 a.m.

In the world of children’s education, music and entertainment, Greg Roth, aka Mr. Greg’s Musical Madness, has quickly landed on the national stage. The interactive curriculum helps provide school readiness for literacy, math, science, music, social-emotional development, cognitive thinking, physical fitness and much more. Students will dance, jump, clap and laugh with this Parents’ Choice Award-winning musical storyteller.

Berry College Jazz Ensemble

John David, director

Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 11:15 a.m.

The Berry College Jazz Ensemble is renowned for its tight and energizing performances, outstanding soloists and talented student arrangers. Directed by John David, the ensemble performs music ranging from exciting new contemporary jazz works to swinging classics. The Berry Jazz Ensemble was a featured performing group at the 2015 Georgia Music Educators Conference in Savannah, Georgia.

Troika Balalaikas: From Russia with Love

Friday, February 19, 2016 at 9:45 and 11:15 a.m.

Troika Balalaikas returns to Spivey Hall with brightly-colored costumes, Old World history and the spirited excitement of Russian folk melodies and rhythms.  A popular performance from Spivey Hall’s 2014 Summer World Music Festival, this unique ensemble performs on balalaikas ranging from small to enormous, the ancient gusli, and an assortment of authentic percussion.

Alan Morrison: Meet the Organ

Friday, February 26, 2016 at 11:15 a.m.

Spivey Hall’s organist-in-residence Alan Morrison also heads up the organ department of the Curtis Institute’s Department of Music.  As an accomplished teacher and an organ virtuoso, Morrison is the perfect choice to introduce audience members of all ages to this majestic instrument, showing how it works and revealing the unique beauty of its music.