WCU to host Clarence Dickinson Organ Festival

HATTIESBURG, Miss., Dec 19, 2007 - The Winters School of Music at William Carey University will host the second annual Clarence Dickinson Organ Festival January 17, 18, and 19 in the Smith Auditorium on the Hattiesburg campus. The festival will feature a competition for beginning and intermediate organists January 18 at 2 p.m.

On January 19, a master class for organ students will be conducted at 10:00 a.m. by Dr. Jeff McLelland, director of music and fine arts at Independent Presbyterian Church, in Birmingham, Ala. McLelland will also play an evening concert that is free to the public on January 19 at 7:30 p.m. in the Smith Auditorium.

McLelland is a former tenured professor of music at Carey and Mississippi College. He is a concert organist, adjudicator and clinician who has performed, judged and held clinics across the U.S., England, and Sweden. McLelland is a regional Councilor for the American Guild of Organists. He received a bachelor of music degree from the University of Southern Mississippi under Dr. Paul Andersen and with Wilma Jensen at Vanderbilt University. He holds a master in music degree from Eastman School of Music and studied there with Russell Saunders. His doctorate was earned at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa where he studied with Warren Hutton.

The concert will feature works by J.S. Bach, Dietrich Buxtehude, Alexandre Guilmant, Eugene Gigout, Herbert Howells, Felix Mendelssohn and Bruce Neswick.

For more information call 601-318-6181 or 1-800-962-5991, ext. 181 or email kvail@wmcarey.edu.