Wilma Jensen will celebrate her 85th birthday in a collaborative concert at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee, where she was organist/choirmaster for 20 years. The concert takes place March 2 at 4 p.m. and will be streamed live from the St. George’s website, www.stgeorgesnashville.org. Michael Barone, of American Public Media’s broadcast Pipedreams, will be present to host the occasion as “Pipedreams Live.”
Former St. George’s Choir members will return as vocal soloists, along with many instrumentalists, in a program that includes some seldom-heard repertoire; some works have been transcribed or arranged by Wilma Jensen for the occasion. These include Gerald Finzi’s Eclogue, which Jensen, playing the piano solo part, will perform with Janette Fishell, Indiana University organ department chairperson; La Villanelle by Eva Dell’Acqua, which will be sung by opera singer Rebecca Price and with harp played by Carol McClure, of the Royal Schools of Music, London, U.K. Terri Richter, of Seattle Opera, will perform Jauchzet Gott from Bach’s Cantata 51 with instrumental trio and continuo.
The newly formed Nashville women’s chorus, Vox Grata, conducted by Jeanette MacCallum along with Carolyn Bailey, Nashville Symphony violinist, will perform the Karg-Elert Fugue, Kanzone und Epilog with Wilma Jensen.
Marjorie Johnston, of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, will sing O rest in the Lord from Mendelssohn’s Elijah; Gloria Parvin, of the Birmingham Independent Presbyterian Choir, and cellist Anthony LaMarchina of the Nashville Symphony, will perform Pie Jesu from the Duruflé Requiem. Actor Timothy Fudge will sing an arrangement of Danny Boy.
Jensen and James Mellichamp, President of Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia, and former doctoral student of Wilma at Indiana University, will perform an organ duet of two sections of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, arranged by James Biery. Trumpeter Jeff Bailey will perform Mouret’s Rondeau, and with his son, Preston Bailey (both of the Nashville Symphony), will play a movement from the Vivaldi Concerto in C for two trumpets. Wilma Jensen will perform Dupré’s Cortège et Litanie and Le Monde dans l’attente du Sauveur (The World Awaiting the Saviour) from Symphonie-Passion.
The program will open with the hymn O God beyond all praising (Thaxted), arranged for organ, brass, and timpani by Richard Proulx; this tune is used in Jupiter from Holst’s The Planets, which will close the program. Wes Ramsay is arranging the work for organ, to be played by Elizabeth Smith, former St. George’s associate organist, and Wilma Jensen, along with a number of instrumentalists. The celebration will be followed by a birthday party reception.
