2011 Messiah Festival Conductor

Jefferey Wall, Director of Choral Activities, is the Elmer F. Pierson Distinguished Professor of Music at Bethany College. He serves as Director of Choral and Vocal Activities and conducts the Bethany Choir, the Chamber Singers, and the Bethany Oratorio Chorus for the annual Messiah Festival. Additionally, he teaches courses in choral pedagogy and conducting, aural skills, applied voice, and other vocal music classes. Wall serves as Music Director of the Bethany Oratorio Society.  The renowned Society’s appearances during the annual Messiah Festival of the Arts consist of performances of Handel’s Messiah on Palm Sunday and Easter, and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion on Good Friday.

2011 Messiah Festival Soloists

Soprano, Rebecca Flaherty: Rebecca Patrick Flaherty is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and will complete her Master of Music in Voice Performance this spring at Georgia Southern University.  Operafestival di Roma invited Rebecca to spend July 2010 in Rome, Italy to perform the role of Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, and awarded her the Louisa Panou scholarship.   Other operatic roles she has performed include Contessa Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro, Lola Markham in Gallantry, Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte, and in April 2011 she will perform the title role in Puccini’s Suor Angelica with Georgia Southern’s Opera Theatre program. Rebecca’s upcoming performances include Handel’s Messiah and Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the Bethany Oratorio Society in Lindsborg, Kansas, Brahm’s Ein deutsches Requiem with the Savannah Philharmonic, a presentation of

opera arias with Charleston Chamber Opera at the Piccolo Spoleto Festival, and in May 2011 she will present her graduate recital entitled, Great Masters in Miniature: The Song Literature of Opera Composers. Rebecca is a native of Cleveland, Ohio, and received her training from Oberlin Conservatory. The Cleveland Institute of Music, and Geoprgia Southern University. She resides in Savannah, Georgia with her husband and two children.

Mezzo, Martha J. Hart: Known for her stylistic interpretation of music spanning the Baroque to contemporary, mezzo-soprano Martha J. Hart has sung to critical acclaim throughout North America and France.  Highly regarded for her performances of oratorio, art song and chamber music, Martha has sung with the symphony orchestras of Montreal, Atlanta, Lansing, Phoenix, Grand Rapids, Omaha and St. Louis, the Florida Orchestra, the Orchestra at Temple Square and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s.  The clarity of her voice and connection with the audience has made her especially sought after for performances of the major works of J. S. Bach, while the warmth and richness are equally adept for the works of Verdi and Mahler. Conductors with whom Ms. Hart has worked include Helmuth Rilling, Simon Preston, Craig Jessop, and the late Robert Shaw. With Mr. Shaw Ms. Hart

performed Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Mozart’s Requiem, Berlioz’ L’enfance du Christ, and Copland’s In the Beginning.  She recorded solos of the Brahms Liebeslieder Waltzes with the Robert Shaw Festival Singers and is a featured soloist on Schubert Songs for Male Chorus with the Robert Shaw Chamber Singers, both on the Telarc label.  Other recordings include music of Charles Ives with the St. Olaf Choir, Linn Records, and a solo CD with pianist J.J. Penna titled Summer Journey:  Songs of Darius Milhaud, available at marthajhart.com.  In March of 2005, she made her solo debut performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall singing the Duruflé Requiem.   Ms. Hart is known for her imaginative recital programs combining poetry reading and art song around a central theme.  As one critic writes:  “The program was charming, touching, and engaging, both in content and presentation.”  A versatile singer, Martha is part of the ensemble Three for the Road, a trio dedicated to the performance of American popular music from the 1930s and‘40s.  In addition to her performance credits, Martha is a respected vocal pedagogue and is invited to present master classes at colleges and universities throughout the United States.  Currently she is serving on the voice faculty at The Ohio State University.

Tenor, Richard Clement: The Grammy-winning American tenor has performed with most of America’s major orchestras and music directors, bringing tonal beauty and superb musicality to repertoire from the baroque to the contemporary. He recently earned particular acclaim for the title role of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with the North Carolina Symphony and Sacramento Choral Arts Society and Orchestra. In addition he premiered and recorded Theofanides' The Here and Now with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony, including performances in Atlanta andat New York’s Carnegie Hall. Among the most in-demand tenors for Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, invitations include the Brooklyn Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; New Jersey, Milwaukee, San Antonio, Oregon, San Diego, Baltimore, Nashville, Phoenix, Colorado and Toledo Symphonies. He recently sungElijah with the Memphis and

Charlotte Symphonies; and the Verdi Requiem with thethe Santa Rosa Symphony and ChautauquaMusic Festival Orchestra. Other engagements included the Atlanta Symphonyfor Messiah and concert performances of John Adams' Doctor Atomic; Beethoven's Missa solemnis with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra; and the Memphis Symphony's Die Schoepfung; returns to the New Jersey Symphony for the Verdi Requiem under Neeme Jaervi, Die Schoepfung with the Puerto Rico Symphony, Beethoven's Missa solemnis with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and a return to the Detroit Symphony for the Mozart Requiem conducted by Hans Graf. Mr. Clement has performed the role of Belmonte in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony; Rachmaninoff’s The Bells with Jeffrey Kahane and the Colorado Symphony; Carmina Burana with Neeme Järvi and the Detroit Symphony, Haydn’s Die Schoepfung with Duain Wolfe and the Colorado Symphony; and Die Schoepfung and two Mozart programs with Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society under Grant Llewellyn. He also sang Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht and Second Symphony with Kurt Masur and the Israel Philharmonic; Toch’s Cantata of the Bitter Herbs with the Czech Philharmonic; the Mozart Requiem with the Saint Louis Symphony; Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with Charles Dutoit and the Montreal Symphony; Kernis’ Millenium Symphony with the Minnesota Orchestra; Mendelssohn’s Second Symphony with the Atlanta Symphony; Tippett’s A Child of Our Time with Jeffrey Kahane and the Santa Rosa Symphony; The Bells with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony in Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall; Haydn’s Seven Last Words of Christ and Beethoven’s Missa solemnis with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. In addition he has been guest soloist with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras; Houston, Toronto, San Francisco and Cincinnati Symphonies, and collaborated with such conductors as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Jesús López-Cobos, Bobby McFerrin, Daniel Harding, Christopher Hogwood, Carlo Rizzi, John Mauceri, Marin Alsop, Hugh Wolff and James Conlon. Festival engagements include Tanglewood (concert performance of Act III of Verdi’s Falstaff), Beethoven #9 at both Grant Park and the Hollywood Bowl, and the Bach B Minor Mass with Seiji Ozawa at Japan’s Saito Kinen Festival. Mr. Clement’s considerable operatic credentials include Pedrillo in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Sir Colin Davis and the New York Philharmonic; Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at Belgium’s De Vlaamse Opera and with the Colorado Symphony. At the Vancouver Opera his roles include Nanki-Poo (The Mikado), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Little Bat (Susannah) and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni); Ernesto (Don Pasquale) at Glimmerglass Opera; Vanya (Katya Kabanova) and To-No-Chujo (Tale of the Genji) at Opera Theater of St. Louis; Belmonte (Entführung) with the Boston Baroque; Lensky (Eugen Onegin) and Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore) at Opera Festival of New Jersey; Candide, Lockwood (Wuthering Heights) and Fenton (Falstaff) at Boston Lyric Opera; and Albert Herring with the Atlanta Opera. Mr. Clement studied voice at Georgia State University and the Cincinnati Conservatory, where he received his Master of Music degree. He was a Tanglewood Music Festival Fellow, has been a member of the Houston Grand Opera Studio and was a recipient of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation Jacobson Study Grant. Recordings include Britten’s War Requiem with the Washington Choral Society, Bartók’s Cantata Profana with the Atlanta Symphony (both Grammy winners) and Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame.Mr. Clement is currently an assistant professor and artist-in-residence at Georgia State University.

Bass, Iwao Asakura, originally from Nagoya, Japan, has appeared in numerous opera productions, including Figaro and Dr. Bartolo in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Father in Hansel and Gretel , Count Almaviva and Figaro in Le Nozze di Figaro, Mr. Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Baritone in Kurt Weil’s The Seven Deadly Sins.  In addition Iwao has been soloist with Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (TX), Arkansas Symphony Orchestra (AR), Tupelo Symphony Orchestra (MS) and Cambridge Early Music Concert Series (UK).  His solo concert experience includes Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, J. S. Bach’s Cantata #82: Ich habe genug (BWV 82) and Actus tragicus (BWV 106), Dvořák’s Te Deum, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s The Seven Last Words of Christ, Mozart’s Requiem (K. 626) and Vesperae solennes de confessore and Requiem, Schubert’s Mass in G, Durufle’s Requiem, Fauré’s Requiem, and Serenade to Music and

Fantasia on Christmas Carols by Ralph Vaughan Williams. As an active recitalist, Iwao has performed regionally and in 2009 was selected to present a recital of Japanese Art Songs for College Music Society (CMS) national conference in Portland, OR.  In 2000 he was a regional finalist at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Audition, and was a semi-finalist of Young Patroness of the Opera Audition in Miami, Florida in 1997. Mr. Asakura is currently serving as Assistant Professor of Voice at Tarleton State University in Stephenville, TX.  He has also taught at Mississippi State University, Ouachita Baptist University (AR), and Pearl River Community College (MS).  He has received the Doctor of Musical Arts in Vocal Performance & Pedagogy and the Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance with a minor in Psychology from the University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg, MS).  He holds the Master of Music in Vocal Performance from Florida State University (Tallahassee, FL).  Since 2002 he has been an active member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS).  His students have been semi-finalists and finalists of NATS vocal competitions at both the state and regional level.  He was also one of twelve teachers chosen nationally to attend the NATS Intern Program in 2007.