Gettysburg, PA – The next Music, Gettysburg! concert will feature Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams on Saturday, September 26th at 4pm at the United Lutheran Seminary campus in Gettysburg at 147 Seminary Ridge. Mr. Williams will be accompanied by Scott Crowne of the Sunderman Conservatory and by the Buzz Jones Quartet. The concert is free and open to everyone.
The program will include two original compositions by Gettysburg musician, Buzz Jones. The first composition, I Shall be Gone, will be performed by Mr. Williams and Mr. Crowne. The text is the 1916 Robert Frost poem, The Sound of the Trees. Frost’s lyricism and views on ordinary life in rural American are well-documented. The poem explores the conflict between people’s desire to create new lives for themselves, and their inability to leave their familiar worlds behind. The second composition is Emancipation, and will be performed with the Buzz Jones Jazz Quartet. Emancipation is a movement from For the People, an oratorio composed for vocal soloists, brass band, wind octet, and dance company. Commissioned by the Pennsylvania Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Committee, it was premiered in 2009 on Dedication Day in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth. Texts are from Psalms 106; 114 and two Lincoln speeches during the 1850s.
The Welsh baritone Jeremy Huw Williams studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, at the National Opera Studio in London, and with April Cantelo. He made his debut with Welsh National Opera as Guglielmo (Così fan tutte) and has since appeared in seventy operatic roles. He has given performances at major venues in North and South America, Australia, China, India, and most European countries. He is renowned as a fine exponent of contemporary music, having commissioned much new music and given premieres of works by Alun Hoddinott, William Mathias, John Tavener, Michael Berkeley, Paul Mealor, Julian Phillips, Richard Causton, Mark Bowden, and Huw Watkins. He frequently records for BBC Radio 3 (in recital, and with the BBC NOW, CBSO, BBC SO, BBC SSO, BBC Philharmonic and BBCCO), and has made many commercial recordings, including more than twenty solo discs of songs. As a principal singer with Welsh National Opera he appeared at the opening night of the Wales Millennium Centre, and received the inaugural Sir Geraint Evans Award from the Welsh Music Guild, given annually to a person or persons who have made a significant contribution to Welsh music in any one year or recent years: ‘there has been an unanimous decision that the first award should be made to baritone Jeremy Huw Williams in recognition of not only his performing ability but also for the tremendous support that he has given to Welsh composers and their music in recent years’. He was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Glyndŵr University in 2009 for services to music in Wales, the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Aberdeen in 2011, the Medal of the Order of the British Empire in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours, and the 2022 John Edwards Memorial Award, the most prestigious non-competitive award given in Wales for services to the nation’s music.
Music, Gettysburg! is a premier concert series featuring international, national, regional and local musical artists for the greater south central Pennsylvania region. Concerts take place in the United Lutheran Seminary Chapel at 147 Seminary Ridge in Gettysburg. For more information about this and other concerts in the Music, Gettysburg! schedule, call 717-339-1334, visit www.musicgettysburg.org, or email to info@musicgettysburg.org.