Classical and Sacred Music Concert at Anchor
Tonight our church was given an extra treat. I say extra, because the music is always wonderful at Anchor Baptist, but tonight we had a classical and sacred music concert hosted by our pianists Joy Schreier, Mark Buller, and a guest to Anchor, Jeffrey Tarr.
Mark started the evening with Chopin and Debussy and later he performed his own compositions. I had already heard some of his compositions on the internet, and loved his Nuit d’ Etoiles the most tonight. Between those two sessions, he played a very complex Rzewski “Down by the Riverside.” Amazing.
Mark Buller
Mark Buller was born in 1986 in Maryland. He began his musical studies at a young age, studying percussion at the Peabody Preparatory with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra percussionist Leo LePage. He went on to study piano with respected pedagogue Jan Puckett. Mark earned a bachelors degree in piano performance at Bob Jones University, where he studied with David Lehman. He went on to earn a graduate degree in composition from BJU, studying with Dan Forrest. In the summer of 2010 he participated in the highSCORE Festival in Pavia, Italy, where he studied with Christopher Theofanidis and Giovanni Albini and had lessons with Paul Moravec and Mario Garuti. Mark, who has also studied briefly with Grammy award-winning composer Richard Danielpour, is a recipient of several awards, including the 2010 Vanguard Premieres Choral Composition Contest (Emerging Composers Category) and two ASCAPlus Awards. He has twice been a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards. Mark is beginning a DMA in composition at the University of Houston in Fall 2011.
Mark’s music has been performed at universities and concert halls across the nation and internationally. Recent performances include Landscapes at Florida State University, Ayres and Madrigals, Book One at Roosevelt University in Chicago and Munich’s art space Movimento, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night near Los Angeles, and Canticle for solo cello and a movement from the Second String Quartet in Pavia, Italy. Upcoming performances include Connect at the Gershwin Hotel in New York City; Dark Watches with British pianist James Bester at The Cell in NYC; the Chamber Symphony No. 1 “Night Musicâ” in Greenville, South Carolina; and EDGE (quintet for electric guitar and strings) in northern Italy (with subsequent recording).
Awards and honors:
Winner, 2010 Vanguard Premieres Choral Composition Contest (Emerging Composers Category) (Sicut Cervus)
Finalist, 2010 ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Awards (String Quartet No. 2)
Recipient, 2009 ASCAPlus Award.
Winner (first prize), 2004 Mark and Kirk Elvy Memorial Piano Solo Competition.
Joy and Jeffrey offered various types of music. From Purcell and Rossini, Faust, Schumann to a lesser known, Loewe, to three spirituals of MacGimsey.
Joy and Jeffrey
From Purcell to Rossini, it was a good thing that Jeffrey described his part in the Barber of Seville, the part of the town gossip needed some explaining…
Don Basilio informs Dr. Bartolo that Almaviva is Rosina’s new lover. He suggests a plan to discredit him by calumny – vicious gossip.
We soon learned that bass-baritone Jeffrey Tarr is part actor as well as opera and concert singer.
Jeffrey Tarr
Acclaimed for his “rock solid vocalism and powerful projection” and his “fervent, robust” stage presence, Jeffrey Tarr is an emerging bass who appeals to audiences and critics alike.
For the 2010-2011 season, Mr. Tarr begins his season with a performance of Basilio in Baltimore Concert Opera’s Il Barbiere di Siviligia. Mr. Tarr performs his first Beethoven Ninth with the New Dominion Chorale under the direction of Tom Beveridge. He appears with the Chesapeake Chamber Opera in their production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette as Frre Laurent and returns to the Washington National Opera to perform in their production of Don Pasquale as the Notary, alongside James Morris, Dwayne Croft, and Ekaterina Siurina under the baton of Placido Domingo. He both debuts as the baritone soloist in Brahms Requiem and returns to sing the bass soloist in Mozart Requiem with DC Summers Sings. Mr. Tarr finishes his season with a recital with Hood College’s Summer Chamber Music Festival.
In the 2009-2010 season, Mr. Tarr performed with Washington National Opera as the Coroner in Porgy and Bess. He sang Osmin in the Die Entführung aus dem Serail with Chesapeake Chamber Opera and also performed as Bartolo in Maryland Opera Society’s Le Nozze di Figaro. He ended his season participating in an all-Schumann concert at Hood College’s Summer Chamber Music Festival.
Mr. Tarr has performed Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte (Maryland Concert Opera, Peabody Opera Theatre as alumnus), Basilio in Il Barbiere di Siviligia (Annapolis Opera, Baltimore Concert Opera), Benoit in La Bohème (Washington National Opera), Ceprano in Rigoletto (Washington Summer Opera Theatre), Fisherman in Peter Grimes (Washington National Opera), Superintendent Budd in Albert Herring (Opera Vivente), Soldier in The Maid of Orleans (Washington National Opera), Commendatore in Don Giovanni (Landon Symphony), Bartolo in Le Nozze di Figaro (Opera Bel Cantanti, Maryland Opera Society) and Collatinus in The Rape of Lucretia (Peabody Opera Theatre as alumnus). On the concert stage, Mr. Tarr has performed in Handel’s Messiah, Fauré’s Requiem, Bach’s St. John’s Passion, Mozart’s Requiem, and Bach’s Magnificat with such organizations as the Manhattan Concert Productions, Concert Artists of Baltimore, the Handel Choir of Baltimore, DC Summer Sings, and the New Dominion Chorale. His performance of Messiah with the New Dominion Chorale was lauded by The Washington Post as “outstanding”¦a large, resonant voice, filled with both power and clarity.”
Mr. Tarr is a former prize winner in the NATSAA-Mid-Atlantic Regionals, Annapolis Opera Competition, the Orpheus Vocal Competition, the Marie Crump Vocal Competition and the Gretchen Hood Vocal Competition. As a winner of the Vocal Arts Society’s Art Song Discovery Series, Mr. Tarr presented four recital programs at prestigious venues throughout the DC area including the Kennedy Center and the Odeon Concert Series. Mr. Tarr received a Masters of Music degree from the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University.
I have long admired Joy’s piano playing and today I read in words something that I always felt myself, a quote from none other than Placido Domingo, that Joy is an “œorchestra at the piano” So true.
Joy Schreier
Hailed as a pianist who “really has it all“ fiery technique and a rich, warm tone,” Joy Schreier has been praised by The Washington Post as a responsive accompanistâ” and an “ideal support”at the piano. She has been credited as “providing much of the evening’s musical nuance,âlso noteworthy that the room seemed to vibrate from her depth and skill,”and the dream accompanist that a singer hopes to find at some point in one’s lifetime.”
Schreier has been presented in recital at Weill Recital hall at Carnegie Hall, the White House, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Museum for Women in the Arts, the National Portrait Gallery, the Phillips Collection, the Cosmos Club, Strathmore Hall, the Embassies of Austria, Russia, Poland, Anderson House on Embassy Row and recital halls throughout the country. Internationally, she has performed in England, Scotland, Wales, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
Schreier has coached for the Washington National Opera Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program and served as official pianist for both the Washington International Voice Competition and Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. She received her Doctorate in Accompanying and Chamber Music in 2003 at the Eastman School of Music where she was the recipient of the Barbara Koeng Award for Excellence in Vocal Accompanying. Former teachers include Jean Barr, Ann Schein, Laurence Morton, and Doug Guiles.
What a blessing! We enjoyed the music so much!
Taking the final bow.
