1/6/97 Contact: Peter Jarjisian or John Climer, Ohio University, 614/593-4244

ATHENS, Ohio -- Top high school musicians from Ohio will perform a free, public concert at 3 p.m. Sunday (Jan. 12) in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium on the Athens campus as Ohio University hosts the second annual Honor Band and Choir Festival.

Coordinated by Director of Concert Bands John Climer and Director of Choral Activities Peter Jarjisian, the festival is an annual event designed to provide talented high school students with a high-profile performance opportunity and to introduce those students to the Ohio University campus.

During November, Climer and Jarjisian held live auditions of hundreds of students in seven cities in Ohio, and selected 68 singers and 67 instrumentalists for the festival. Participants will arrive on campus Friday for a look at the campus and extensive rehearsals before the Sunday performance.

Jarjisian and Climer said the festival offers "two highly select ensembles" and is unusual compared to other similar festivals in Ohio because live auditions, rather than taped entries, were required of the students.

"High school directors and students we met appreciated the personal contact," Jarjisian said. A number of senior participants in last year's festival now attend Ohio University, and many younger musicians who participated last year returned to perform again this year, he said.

The concert program includes "But Thanks Be to God" from Handel's "Messiah" and Warren Martin's arrangement of the spiritual "Great Day" by the Honor Choir; the first movement of the "William Byrd Suite" by Gordon Jacob and Karl L. King's "Barnum and Bailey's Favorite" by the Honor Band; and a combined choir and band performance of "Hymn for Our Time" by John Ness Beck.

Before joining Ohio University's faculty, Climer served on faculties at the University of North Dakota, Emory University in Atlanta and Ohio Northern University in Ada. He also is former assistant conductor of the Conservatory Wind Ensemble at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jarjisian conducts University Singers and the Choral Union, and teaches conducting, choral literature and choral pedagogy. He is president of the Ohio Choral Directors Association and associate conductor of the Cleveland Singers.