Vive la Chanson! Performs at Anderson Auditorium March 20

SHREVEPORT, La. (Centenary News Service)— A concert of French arias and art songs featuring soprano Marsha Thompson and pianist Hal Lanier takes place Saturday, March 20 beginning at 7 p.m. in the Anderson Auditorium located in the Hurley School of Music located on the campus of Centenary College.

Marsha Thompson

Hal Lanier

During the concert, works by Gounod, Massenet, Fauré, Delibes and Louisiana Creole songs will be performed. Tickets for the performance will be available at the door and are $20 for adults, $15 for children and students.

Formally trained as a violinist since five years of age at the Centenary Suzuki School, Thompson majored in violin performance at the University of Houston. During her third year of studies, she changed her major to vocal performance, and graduated with a degree in Applied Music. She also studied voice with Marilyn Horne at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Calif.

She has received numerous prestigious awards including grants from the Career Bridges Foundation, Houston Chapter of Links, Opera Index Society, Gerda Lissner Foundation, Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, and the George London Foundation among many others. Other notable awards include Third Place in the SW Region Metropolitan Opera Nation Council Auditions, the Metropolitan Opera National Council Encouragement Award, First Prize in the Enrico Caruso Awards Competition, First Prize in the National Society of Arts and Letters Competition, Second Place in the 2001 Fort Worth Opera Competition, and First Place in the Rehfuss Singing Actor Competition of Orlando Opera.

Hal Lanier is a well-known musician living and working in Houston, Texas. His expertise and attention to detail is well respected in varied genres. His three decades of range and experience is broad: from being a conductor on the music staff of Houston Grand Opera, to a five-year collaborative relationship with famed Metropolitan Opera basso Cesare Siepi, or an American tour of Man of La Mancha with Robert Goulet.

Primarily known as a vocal coach and pianist, he also is active in academia and composes music. His most recent operatic composition, Hard Times on Catfish Row, received its premiere at Rice University. His original compositions received their first performances at Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and have been broadcast internationally. On Broadway, he wrote an original music score for Sandra Deer's So Long On Lonely Street. Currently, he is Principal Coach at the Moores Opera Center at the University of Houston.

For more information, call the Hurley School of Music at 318-869-5235.