Neva Fickling & Friends to Perform in Concert

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MACON – Neva Langley Fickling, Georgia’s only Miss America, will perform in concert at Mercer University’s McCorkle Music Building Recital Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 29.

A longtime friend of the performing arts in Georgia, Fickling’s own success as a pianist helped her win the title of Miss America in 1953. She is still the only Miss America to win all three preliminary contests. A graduate of Wesleyan College, Fickling has been awarded an honorary doctoral degree in fine arts by Wesleyan and is the recipient of the Lady Bird Johnson Award and Woman of the Year Award by Keep America Beautiful. She was also the founder of the Georgia Women of Achievement, an annual award given to women of outstanding achievement in Georgia.

In 1989, Fickling resumed public performances with a series of recitals in Georgia, North Carolina, Utah, Florida and Italy. She has performed as a guest soloist with the Macon, Utah, and Benevento, Italy symphony orchestras.

This sold out concert, entitled “Piano Mania: Neva Fickling and Friends,” will additionally showcase the talents of Edward Eikner, the Catherine L. Comer Professor of Fine Arts at Wesleyan College; John N. Roberts, the Callaway Professor of Music and chairman of the Mercer University Department of Music; Jean Roberts, a senior lecturer in the Department of Music at Mercer; and Joan Godsey, for whom Mercer’s Joan Stockstill Godsey Music Scholarship was established. The program will include works by Copland, DeFalla, Poulenc, Milhaud, and a very special arrangement of Bizet’s Carmen for two pianos and eight hands.

The concert is sold-out. For additional information on this or other Mercer-sponsored concerts, call 478-301-5470.

Founded in 1833, Mercer is a 7,300-student, comprehensive, Baptist-affiliated university offering undergraduate and graduate degrees through the College of Liberal Arts, the Eugene W. Stetson School of Business and Economics, the Tift College of Education, the School of Engineering, the Walter F. George School of Law, the School of Medicine, the Georgia Baptist College of Nursing, the Southern School of Pharmacy, the James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology and the College of Continuing and Professional Studies.

Mercer University has campuses in Macon and Atlanta and education centers in Douglas County, Covington, Griffin and Eastman. The University also operates the Mercer Engineering Research Center in Warner Robins and the Mercer University Press in Macon. For the past 13 years, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Mercer among the leading universities in the South.


Editor’s Note: Media interested in covering the event should contact

Elizabeth Flader at (478) 301-2933 or (800) 837-2911.

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