American Spiritual Ensemble soprano, pianist perform at Faculty & Friends Concert

Janel Shoun | 

Hope Koehler, soprano and performer with the Nashville Opera and Tennessee Opera Theatre, and James Douglass, pianist and former coordinator of the collaborative piano degree program at Middle Tennessee State University, are the featured performers in a Lipscomb University Faculty & Friends Concert at 8 p.m., Monday, Sept. 29, in Ward Hall, on the Lipscomb campus in Green Hills. This concert is free and open to the public.

The pair will perform selections from The Lass from the Low Countree, Koehler and Douglass’ recently recorded collection of John Jacob Niles songs, produced by the American Spiritual Ensemble and released on the Albany Records label. Among the selections performed will be The Lass From the Low Countree, My Lover is a Farmer Lad, The Gambler’s Wife (By-Low), Ribbon Bow, Little Black Star and The Black Dress.

Niles was a native Kentuckian who collected folk music and wrote more than a thousand songs based on the tunes and words he collected. Many of his songs have become such standard fare that they are assumed to be traditional and his name is often not attached to them. Two such examples are Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair and I Wonder As I Wander.

In addition, they will perform four folk songs for soprano, viola, and piano arranged by Alan Smith; Songs for Leontyne by Lee Hoiby; Lyric Suite by Robert L. Morris; and 

Koehler is a regular performer and featured soloist with the American Spiritual Ensemble, a group that performs all over the world, and whose mission is to keep the American Negro Spiritual alive and vibrant. She has also been on the faculty of the prestigious Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts for seven years. Koehler has appeared with many opera companies and orchestras, such as Blair Opera Theatre, MTSU Opera Theatre, University Opera Theatre in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Northland Opera Theatre Experience, Lyric Opera of the North and Lexington Symphony Orchestra.

Douglass has taught at Mississippi College, Occidental College, University of Southern California as well as MTSU. In 2005 he joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro where is currently assistant professor of collaborative piano in the accompanying and chamber music degree program. Performances as a collaborative pianist have included recitals and television/radio broadcasts across the United States and in Europe (France, Germany, Austria, Hungary). He has been involved in diverse genres including chamber music, vocal arts, opera, choral arts, symphonic repertoire, jazz, cabaret, and musical theater.

For more information on the Faculty & Friends Concert Series contact Marilyn Smith at the Lipscomb University Department of Music at 615.966.5929.