Seven PJC students named to All State Choir

Published or Revised March 01, 2007

Seven Paris Junior College students were chosen recently for the prestigious Two-Year College All State Choir and had the opportunity to sing under the direction of nationally renowned conductor Dr. Thomas Jaber, director of choral activities and professor of vocal coaching at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University. The students, members of the PJC Chorale, include Brandi Amos, freshman from Avery; Erin McDowell, sophomore from Paris; James Green, sophomore from Quinlan; Tyler Little, freshman from Paris; Sammy Rollerson, freshman from Paris; Meshaya Wallace, sophomore from Paris; and Marcus Bailey, sophomore from Paris. Both Green and Bailey have been named to the All State Choir in previous years. The students spent three days in rehearsal at the Texas Music Educators Convention held in San Antonio on Feb. 14-17, and performed a concert to culminate the event in the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center on Feb. 17. The Texas Two-Year All State Choir is comprised of 140 singers from 25 community colleges across the state. Texas Two-Year All State Choir provides community and junior college students opportunities to perform quality choral works and to glean experience and inspiration from distinguished conductors. According to PJC choral director, Pat Fowzer, the students learned tremendous musical lessons about tone quality, phrasing, music history, diction and articulation. Among the works performed were: "Gloria" by John Rutter which was accompanied by a 10-piece brass choir; "Ave Verum Corpus" by Mozart; and "How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place" by Brahms. The seven students will perform one of their All State Choir numbers during the spring Chorale concert in the sanctuary of First United Methodist Church on Tuesday, April 10, at 7:30 p.m.