Sixteen High School Strings Musicians from Eight States Featured in Festival Concert

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Sixteen exceptionally talented high school strings musicians from eight states selected to participate in the fourth annual Robert McDuffie & Friends Labor Day Festival for Strings will be featured in the Festival Concert, scheduled for 3 p.m., Monday, Sept. 1, in Fickling Hall of the McCorkle Music Building on the Macon campus. The students will perform classical chamber music selections by Beethoven, Dvorak, Mendelssohn, and Schubert and also Mozart’s Divertimento in D major, K136 alongside their master teachers.

Faculty performing in the concert include Robert McDuffie, Distinguished University Professor of Music; Amy Schwartz Moretti, director of the Robert McDuffie Center for Strings and former Concertmaster of the Oregon Symphony; Andrés Diaz, renowned concert cellist and Distinguished Artist of the McDuffie Center; David Halen, Concertmaster, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Distinguished Artist of the McDuffie Center; Christopher Rex, Principal Cellist, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Distinguished Artist of the McDuffie Center; Sabina Thatcher, Principal Violist, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and Distinguished Artist of the McDuffie Center; and Paul Murphy, Associate Principal Violist, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Distinguished Artist of the McDuffie Center.

Mercer students currently enrolled in the McDuffie Center will also perform with the string orchestra. The free concert is the culminating event for the annual five-day festival that began Thursday, Aug. 28, and runs through Labor Day. All seats for the concert were reserved as of Wednesday, Aug. 27. For more information about the Festival or the McDuffie Center, call the Townsend School of Music at (478) 301-2748 or visit www.mercer.edu/mcduffie.