Shorter University's Matthew Hoch to perform faculty recital with guest Christina Howell

October 26, 2011 - Baritone Matthew Hoch, assistant professor of music at Shorter University, will present a faculty recital on Monday, Nov. 7, at 7:30 p.m. in Brookes Chapel. Hoch will be assisted by guest soprano Christina Howell, assistant professor of voice at Clayton State University; and pianist Ben Harris, instructor of accompanying and vocal coach at Shorter University. Hoch and Howell will perform all 46 songs of Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch. The song collection is comprised of miniature masterpieces representing some of the finest songwriting of the late Romantic era. This event is open to the public at no charge.

Dr. Matthew Hoch earned his bachelor in music degree, summa cum laude, from Ithaca College with a triple major in vocal performance, music education, and music theory; his Master of Music degree from the Hartt School with a double major in vocal performance and music history; and his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in vocal performance and literature from the New England Conservatory. Hoch teaches applied voice, vocal literature, and serves as coordinator of the vocal division. He has performed as a soloist with many organizations, most recently with the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra and at the Oregon Bach Festival. In 2008, he was one of the seven national finalists for the Louisville Bach Competition. His professional oratorio experience includes over a dozen works by J.S. Bach, Handel’s Messiah, Haydn’s Paukenmesse, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Fauré’s Requiem, Duruflé’s Requiem, Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs, Dvořák’s Te Deum, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. Also interested in new music, Hoch can be heard as a soloist on the Navona recording of Kile Smith’s Vespers with the Piffaro Renaissance Band and the Crossing. He has been a regular participant in the Carnegie Hall Choral Workshops, where he has sung under the batons of Peter Schreier, Charles Dutoit, and Helmuth Rilling. Since 2005, he has been a tenured member of the Oregon Bach Festival Chorus under the direction of Maestro Rilling. This Grammy-award winning group recently completed a complete cycle of Haydn’s late masses for Hänssler Classics; the three-disc set was released in 2009.

Christina Howell began her studies with a Bachelor of Music degree from Furman University, Master of Music from the Cleveland Institute of Music and Doctor of Musical Arts from the University of South Carolina. She has been honored with prizes including the Max Berman Opera Prize, The Boris Goldovsky Award for Excellence in Operatic Acting and artist awards from the National Association of Teachers of Singing.  Dr. Howell was a two-time district winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council District Auditions, a semi-finalist in the National Stewart Awards and winner of the Charlotte Opera Guild Vocal Competition. Her students have been accepted for graduate work in prestigious conservatories such as the New England Conservatory of Music, San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, and have participated in summer training programs including the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria and the Operafestival di Roma.

Howell’s operatic credits include Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Gilda in Rigoletto, Pamina in The Magic Flute, and Constance in Les Dialogues des Carmelites. She has received acclaim for performances in Handel’s Messiah, Requiems of Mozart and Faure?, Respighi’s Laud to the Nativity, Mozart’s C Minor Mass and others.  Other performance credits include filming of Pulitzer Prize winning composer Robert Ward’s opera Roman Fever for South Carolina Educational Television. She has served as a judge for vocal competitions and has also served as a preliminary judge for the National Association of Teachers of Singing Art Song Composition competition.

Founded in 1873, Shorter University is a Christian university committed to excellence in education. Since 2003, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Shorter among the South’s best baccalaureate colleges, and the Princeton Review annually includes Shorter on its lists of best value and best Southeastern college. The university offers traditional bachelor’s degrees in 48 major areas as well as undergraduate degree programs for working adults, the Master of Business Administration, the Master of Education and the Master of Arts in Leadership. General education and calculus courses are offered in an online format, and Shorter recently launched online programs that lead toward the Associate of Science, the Bachelor of Business Administration, and the Master of Accountancy degrees. For more information, visit www.shorter.edu.

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