ODEKHIREN AMAIZE

• For Darfur!

"With so much slavery, with so much boredom, And with false notions and the greatest danger To the soul, here to be carving holy things."

– Michelangelo, 1552

Odekhiren Amaize (Ode), a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in 1953 in Nigeria. While obtaining a professional Diploma in Art and Design at Yaba College of Technology in Lagos, he was a member of the Steve Rhodes Voices, performing in Africa, England, and Wales. He began formal vocal training at the University of Texas at Austin under the tutelage of Michael Trimble and Jess Walters during which he obtained an interdisciplinary doctorate in Advertising, Marketing, and Educational Psychology. Ode holds a Diploma in Voice from Indiana University School of Music at Bloomington, where he spent four years studying under Camilla Williams and Margaret Harshaw. He also holds a post-graduate Certificate in Solo Song Recital (under the direction of Victor I. Yushmanov) from the St. Petersburg State Conservatory named after N. Rimsky-Korsakov. Earlier, Ode had spent two years as a Fellow at Opera Music Theatre International (OMTI) in Newark, New Jersey, studying and performing under the artisitic direction of Jerome Hines. His recital repertoire includes but is not limited to songs of Beethoven, Brahms, Elliot Carter, Glinka, Ives, Mussorgsky, Florence Price, Rakhmaninov, Shostakovich, Swanson, and Tchaikovsky. His international performing and recording experiences are augmented by his other professional teaching and research interests in Promoting and Marketing the Arts, Music Business Management, and Teaching Management through Literature. This has been the case since 1986 upon completing his doctoral dissertation: “Inducing College Students’ Opera Attendance: An Experimental Investigation of Affect.” He has served on the marketing and music faculties of various universities in the United States, China, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and in Russia where he frequently performs and had spent an academic year as a Fulbright Senior Scholar, performing and lecturing on marketing the arts, arts administration, and music business management at the Moscow State Conservatory named after P.I. Tchaikovsky.

Andrew Gordon studied at the New England Conservatory and the Juilliard School. Currently Director of Music at Diamond Hill United Methodist Church in Cos Cob, Connecticut, he is heard regularly as principal keyboard of the Greenwich (Connecticut) Symphony and as a member of the same orchestra’s Chamber Players. He is also the accompanist and Music Consultant for the Jenny Lind Vocal Competition sponsored each year by the P.T. Barnum Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was an assistant conductor for four seasons at Central City Opera in Colorado, and helped prepare Opera/Omaha’s world premiere production of Hugo Weisgall’s The Gardens of Adonis in 1993. He is also a composer, with recent compositions including a Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and An Evening Prayer, the latter published by Oxford University Press.

HENRY PURCELL
Evening Hymn

BEARDSLEY VAN DE WATER
The Penitent--Luke xv, 11-25

RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
The Call

ANTON RUBINSTEIN
Nero, Epithalamion of Vindex

GEORGES BIZET
Agnus Dei

KUM BA YA
(arranged by Patsy Ford Simms)

DEEP RIVER
(Transcription by Hugo Frey)

WERE YOU THERE
(Arranged by H.T. Burleigh)

DUKE ELLINGTON
Come Sunday

NKOSI SIKELEL’ IAFRIKA
(E. Sontonga)

IRIN AJO
(Yoruba spiritual)

THE INTERNATIONALE
(words: Eugene Pottier; music: Pierre Degeyter; arr. Jerry Englelbach)

THE STAR–SPANGLED BANNER
(words: Francis Scott Key; music: John Stafford Smith)

FRANZ SCHUBERT
An die Musik

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL
Frondi tenere / Ombra mai fù

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN
In questa tomba oscura

MSR Classics