Director of Music Jayson Keeton Music at First Presby

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About the Artists

Jayson Keeton was born and raised in a small town in Upstate New York, on the shores of Lake Ontario. He began playing the piano and organ at a young age, which led to playing his first church service at the age of nine. Since that first service, Jayson has consistently served as both a regular and substitute organist and pianist for several churches, having held regular positions with churches in New York, Illinois, and North Carolina. Jayson studied composition at the Conservatory of Music at Purchase College, just outside of New York City. Jayson is also active as a choral singer, having performed with festival choruses around the country. In 2016, he participated in the National Lutheran Hymn Festival, celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. This series of performances culminated at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas. Most recently, in December 2019 Jayson sang Pepper Choplin’s cantata Heaven’s Child at Carnegie Hall in New York City, conducted by the composer. In addition to church music, Jayson is also passionate about theatre. He has served as a musical director, conductor, pit musician, or ensemble member for over 75 productions at all levels of theatre – from local community theatre to professional theatre in New York City. Recent collaborations include productions with NC State University, William Peace University, and East Carolina University. Jayson also currently serves as the principal guest keyboardist for the Choral Department at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. In collaboration with composer Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Pippin, Godspell), Jayson produced and wrote the musical arrangements for Dreamscape, a musical revue of Schwartz’s work. At the time, it was the only Stephen Schwartz revue in existence. Jayson served as a member of the ensemble in a 2015 concert production of Jason Robert Brown’s Parade, conducted by the composer, as well as the 25th Anniversary Concert performance of Crazy for You, directed by Tony award winning director and choreographer Susan Stroman. Both productions were presented at Lincoln Center in New York City. Jayson currently serves as the Director of Music and Organist at First Presbyterian Church, Charleston, West Virginia.

Madeline Edwards (soprano) is a native of Goldsboro, North Carolina. Madeline has a B.A. in Music performance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Kenan Music Scholar, as well as a High School Diploma in Voice Performance from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. She has performed rules such as Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus and Cinderella in Cendrillon with UNC Opera. In 2016 she performed as the Countess Almaviva in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in the Amalfi Coast Music and Arts Festival in Italy. In 2018 Madeline was a winner of the UNC Concerto Competition. Madeline has studied under Dr. Louise Toppin, Dr. Jeanne Fischer, Dr. Marilyn Taylor, and Elaine Baker, and has participated in masterclasses with Anthony Dean Griffey, Lori Laitman, and Marquita Listman. She is currently a member of the North Carolina Opera Chorus. Program Notes

Claudio Monteverdi was an Italian composer, string player, choirmaster, and priest. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history. Arguably his most famous opera, L’Orfeo is based on the Greek legend of Orpheus, and tells the story of his descent to Hades and his attempt to bring his bride Eurydice back to the living world. It was written in 1607 for a court performance during the annual Carnival at Mantua and is the earliest opera that is still regularly performed.

Henry Purcell was an English composer. Though he incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements, Purcell ’s was a uniquely English form of Baroque music. Purcell was born in St. Ann’s Lane, Westminster – the area of London later known as Devil’s Acre, a notorious slum. The family then moved just a few hundred yards west of Westminster Abbey. After his father’s death in 1664, Purcell was placed under the guardianship of his uncle Thomas, who arranged for Henry to be admitted as a chorister. He studied under Captain Henry Cooke, Master of the Children. Purcell was a chorister in the Chapel Royal until his voice broke in 1673 when he became assistant to the organ-builder John Hingston, who held the post of keeper of wind instruments to the King. In 1679, he became organist of Westmister Abbey, devoting himself almost entirely to the composition of sacred music for the first six years of this post. Between 1685 and 1688 Purcell wrote music for seven plays, including his chamber opera Dido and Aeneas. The aria When I Am Laid In Earth, informally known as “Dido’s Lament,” is played annually in London by the massed bands of the Guards Division at the Cenotaph remembrance parade in Whitehall on Remembrance Sunday, the Sunday nearest to November 11 (Armistice Day). Purcell died at the height of his career at the age of 35 or 36. His cause of death is unclear. He is buried adjacent to the organ in Westminster Abbey. Thy hand, Belinda; darkness shades me. On thy bosom let me rest. More I would, but Death invades me: Death is now a welcome guest. When I am laid in earth, may my wrongs create no trouble in thy breast; Remember me, but ah! forget my fate.

George Frideric Handel was a German-born Baroque composer becoming well known for his operas, oratorios, anthems, and concerti grossi. He received his training in Halle and worked as a composer in Hamburg and Italy before settling in London in 1712, where he spent the bulk of his career, and became a naturalized British subject in 1727. Handel wrote Saul in 1738 and it was first performed at the King’s Theatre in January of the following year. The Funeral March from Act III is one of the best-known funeral marches in classical music. The march, which initiates the funeral rites of Saul and Jonathan in the oratorio, has been adopted for the state funerals of Lord Nelson, the Duke of Wellington, and Winston Churchill. Beethoven even planned, but never completed, a set of variations on the march for full orchestra. Handel wrote Joshua in 1747, one of a series of English oratorios based on military themes. His second-most-famous chorus, See the Conquering Hero was first penned for Joshua. It was an immensely popular number and he soon added it to Judas Maccabaeus, which had premiered the season before. The chorus is more often thought of in connection with Judas because of its relatively greater fame. When a friend said to Handel that in his opinion the composer had written better things than See The Conquering Hero, Handel replied, “You will live to see it a greater favourite with the people than my other fine things.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (baptized as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart) was born in Salzburg, in the Holy Roman Empire. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty, embarking on a grand tour. At 17, Mozart was engaged as a musician at the Salzburg court, but travelled in search of a better position. While visiting Vienna in 1781, he was dismissed from his Salzburg position. He chose to stay in Vienna, where he achieved fame, but little financial security. During his final years in Vienna, he composed many of his best-known symphonies, concertos, and operas, and portions of the Requiem, which was largely unfinished at the time of his early death at the age of 35. The circumstances of his death are largely uncertain, and have thus been much mythologized. Program Notes Nearing the peak of his career, Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) is one of Mozart’s finest scores – many consider it to be the finest Opera buffa ever written. One of the opera’s most beautiful and thoughtful moments occurs in Act III with the Countess’s aria Dove sono. Here, the Countess is planning to catch her husband, the Count, red-handed in faithlessness with Susanna, and she’s employed Susanna to help trap him. In a moment of quiet reflection, she wonders where the sweetness of their love has gone. Even as the pathos of the Countess’s pain deepen, her hopes for reconciliation are still distantly glimmering. E Susanna non vien! Susanna does not come! Sono ansiosa di saper come il Conte accoise la proposta. I’m anxious to know how the Count received the proposal. Alquanto ardito il progetto mi par, The scheme appears to be rather daring, E ad uno sposo si vivace e geloso! And behind the back of a husband who is forceful and jealous! Ma che mal c’è? But what’s the harm? Cangiando I miei vestiti con quelli di Susanna, To change my clothes into those of Susanna, E suoi co’miei al favor della note. And she changes into mine under the cover of darkness. Oh, cielo! A qual umil stato fatale Oh, dear! What a humble and dangerous state Io son ridotta da un consorte crudel! I am reduced to by a cruel husband Che dopo avermi con un misto inaudito Who imparted me with an unheard mixture of D’infedeltà, di gelosia, di sdegno! Infidelity, jealousy, and disdain! Prima amata, indi offesa, e alfin tradita, First, he loved me, then he abused me, and finally betrayed me, Fammi or cercar da una mia serva aita! Let me seek help from a servant!

Dove sono i bei momenti di dolcezza e di piacer? Where are the good times of sweetness and pleasure? Dove andaro I giuramenti di quell labbro menzogner? Where have they gone, the oaths of that deceitful tongue? Perchè mai, se in pianti e in pene Why would, despite my tears and pain Per me tutto si cangiò, And the complete changes in my life, La memoria di quell bene dal mio sen non trapassò? The good memories remain within my breast? Ah! se almen la mia costanza, Ah! if only my constancy, Nel languire amando ognor, mi portasse una speranza Which still loves even while languishing, will bring hope

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian opera composer. He came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Vincenzo Bellini, whose works significantly influenced him. The director of the Paris Opera had invited Verdi to compose an opera for the company in 1845–1846, but initially Verdi declined. However, Verdi eventually gave some consideration of the idea and went to Paris to work on and complete the score for Je rusalem. Though not as often performed as some of his other operas, new productions of Jérusalem are occasionally presented. The Introduction serves as a sort of overture, opening the opera.

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II were an influential, innovative, and successful American musical theatre writing team. They created a string of popular Broadway musicals in the 1940s and 1950s, initiating what is considered the “golden age” of musical theatre. Carousel is the second musical by the pair. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both of their jobs. Richard Rodgers later wrote that Carousel was his favorite of all his musicals. You’ll Never Walk Alone is first sung in the second act, then reprised in the final scene to encourage a graduation class of which Billy and Julie’s daughter is a member. When you walk through a storm, keep your chin up high And don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm is a golden sky And the sweet silver song of a lark. Walk on through the wind, walk on through the rain, Though your dreams be tossed and blown, Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, And you’ll never walk alone, You’ll never walk alone!