Contact: Allison Matthews

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State’s choral department will present its annual concert “Reflect and Rejoice: Celebrating African American History through Music” in observance of Black History Month.  

Conducted by Gary Packwood, MSU associate professor and director of choral activities, the performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. on Monday [Feb. 22] at the First Baptist Church in Starkville.

Free and open to all, the concert will feature the premiere of the choral anthem “Isaiah 11: 1-9,” by David Hurd, celebrated composer and concert organist based in New York City. 

The piece was commissioned by Karen Murphy, coordinator of collaborative piano at MSU, in honor of Anita George, MSU professor emerita of curriculum and instruction, for her life’s work in race reconciliation in Mississippi, in the U.S. and abroad, as well as in the Episcopal Church. 

Murphy said, “I feel strongly that this message of peace and reconciliation will be heard in a glorious way when the anthem is premiered during the concert.”  The piece was funded by a grant from the Criss Foundation.

According to the composer, the biblical text speaks of the hope for a time of harmony in the near future, in which all will live in peace. This vision has through the ages captured the hopes of oppressed people. The anthem “delivers this biblical passage in a relatively compact manner, beginning with a flourish by the organ, followed by 'overlapping texts' of the choir and rippling figures in the organ, and closing with the choir singing in ‘strong chordal unison.'”

Hurd, who will be in attendance at the concert, is renowned both nationally and internationally as an accomplished organist and composer, especially of church music. His hymns appear in church hymnals around the world.  In 2010, he received the Distinguished Composer Award of the American Guild of Organists. 

“I am very much looking forward to the concert and happy to have been invited to compose a new work for it,” Hurd said. 

Murphy said it is a great honor to have Hurd in attendance for the premiere.

George, who was born in Vicksburg, has held both teaching and administrative positions in elementary, secondary and university institutions, coming to MSU in 1987 as professor of instruction and curriculum and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning. Her work in racial reconciliation began when she witnessed firsthand the historic March on Washington. Since that time, she has conducted diversity workshops and participated in conferences locally, state-wide, throughout the nation, and abroad, as well as in the Episcopal Church. She has received numerous honors; most recently, in January 2016, the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi passed a resolution commending her leadership in the church and community. 

George has said that Murphy understood that her work in racial reconciliation is “intrinsically connected to her own life, as well as that of her forebears and those to come after her.”

Other pieces to be performed during the concert include “My Tribute” by Andraé Crouch, “Beautiful City” by André Thomas, “Sit Down Servant” by Stacey V. Gibbs, “He’ll Make a Way” by Byron J. Smith, “Glory” by John Stephens, Lonnie Lynn, and Che Smith, and “Worthy to be Praised!” by Byron J. Smith.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.