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RENOWNED VOCAL ARTISTS TO PRESENT ALUMNI RECITAL AT BSC: MILDRED ALLEN TO BE INDUCTED INTO GALLERY OF HONOR
RENOWNED VOCAL ARTISTS TO PRESENT ALUMNI RECITAL AT BSC: MILDRED ALLEN TO BE INDUCTED INTO GALLERY OF HONOR
For Immediate Release
Feb. 3, 2022
Two renowned singer/scholars will be presented in a guest recital at 7:30 p.m. Feb.17 in Hill Recital Hall at Birmingham-Southern College, 900 Arkadelphia Road. Both singers will be supported by a pianist, and all three are BSC Alumni as well as close family. The performance is sponsored by the Hugh and Barbara Thomas Master Class Series, sponsored by the Waters family and State Farm Insurance.
Steven Kimbrough has been described as “a remarkable singer with a cultivated, easily flowing baritone of fine quality, and a rare command of words and rhythms” (The New Yorker), and "a master of vocal art" (La Stampa, Rome). His voice has been praised as “magnificent” (Journal de Genève), “mellow, dramatic, elegant” (The New York Times). At Birmingham Southern College, he studied voice with longtime Professor Andrew Gainey. In addition to a long career in opera, he is an ordained United Methodist minister who was an active member for many years of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church, holds a Ph.D. in Hebrew Scriptures and Semitic languages, and is the author of more than 50 books.
Margaret Jackson, Kimbrough’s niece, is a soprano with extensive performance and research experience in America and abroad, and has earned the Ph.D. in Musicology and D.M. in Voice performance. A graduate of BSC, she studied with Professor Mildred Allen.
Mimi Jackson, Kimbrough’s sister and Jackson’s mother, is an accomplished pianist and composer with a long career based in the Birmingham area, who studied piano with Professor Hugh Thomas at BSC.
The program will feature Austrian, German, and American song and original settings of African American poets Charles Moses Horton, Countee Cullen, Langston Hughes, and Paul Laurence Dunbar by Mimi Jackson, and will conclude with a set, “The Art of Western Plains Songs.”
The evening will also include the induction of BSC Professor Emerita Mildred Allen’s portrait into the Music Gallery of Honor. Professor Allen passed away in May 2021 after many years on the faculty at the College, and an illustrious opera career that included more than 200 appearances in solo roles at New York’s Metropolitan Opera and a host of performances and recordings with composers such as Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland.
COVID-19 Protocols: BSC currently requires masking for all audience members as part of its diligent effort to contain the potential spread of COVID-19 in the College community. Admission is free and all are cordially invited.
Contact: Professor Lester Seigel, Birmingham-Southern College
[email protected] – 205.915.1971 (cell)