FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (02/03)
Contact:  Hurley School of Music, 318-869-5235
 
 
Dr. Gale Odom, Gay Grosz to Present Recital Feb. 25 in Centenary's Anderson Auditorium

SHREVEPORT, LA -- Centenary College faculty members Gale Odom and Gay Grosz will present a recital at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 25 in the Anderson Auditorium of Centenary's Hurley Music Building. Admission is free and open to the public. The program will contain music by Handel, Strauss and Turina, as well as a group of 19th-century French songs and some English folk-song settings.

Coloratura soprano Gale Odom is a frequent performer with opera and concert appearances in Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas. A former national finalist in the National Association of Teachers of Singing Artist Awards and a regional winner of the Federation of Music Clubs Young Artist Award, Dr. Odom has performed over 30 opera roles, including Marie in Daughter of the Regiment, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Micäela in Carmen and Hanna in The Merry Widow. She has appeared with such regional organizations as the Shreveport Opera, New Orleans Symphony, Longview Opera, South Arkansas Symphony and Shreveport Symphony.

Dr. Odom holds an M.M. from Indiana University and the B.M. and D.M.A. degrees from the University of North Texas, where she was a student of Virginia Botkin. She has taught at Centenary College since 1978. In 1994, she was named Centenary’s Outstanding Teacher, and in 1998, she became dean of the Hurley School of Music.

Pianist Gay Grosz, accompanist for the recital, teaches piano, accompanying, and chamber music at Centenary College. She received her B.M. degree from Centenary and her M.M. degree from Louisiana State University, where she studied with Constance Knox Carroll. Ms. Grosz is one of the official accompanists for the Shreveport Symphony’s Nena Plant Wideman Piano Competition and is a past finalist of that competition. She has performed with the Marshall Symphony Orchestra and Shreveport Symphony Orchestra. She also performs with the Baroque Artists of Shreveport and is a member of the Evangeline Trio.

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