By Joan C. McKinney, news and publications coordinator

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. - A Kentucky Composers Concert, sponsored by the Kentucky Music Teachers Association, will take place Sunday, Oct. 26 when the Association meets on the campus of Campbellsville University for its 56th Annual State Conference.

The concert is a highlight of the Conference and features composers from around the state in performances of their works. Program time is 8 p.m. in Ransdell Chapel. The public is invited to the free concert.

A special feature of the concert with be the premier of a work commissioned by KMTA from Louisvillian Richard Burchard for seven-part chorus and organ. Titled Lord, God of this Great Night, the new composition is based on a prayer by Thomas Merton reproduced in the book Dialogues with Silences: Prayers and Drawings.

Merton was a monk for much of his life at Gethsemani Abbey near New Haven, Ky. The new composition will be performed by the Louisville Youth Performing Arts School Chorale under the direction of Timothy Glasscock.

In the months to come, Burchard's work will be entered in a national contest sponsored by the Music Teachers National Association, the parent organization of the Kentucky Music Teachers Association, as an entry for the commissioned work of the year. Burchard teaches composition, arranging, music technology, music theory and world music at Bellarmine University. His compositions consist primarily of choral works and have been performed throughout the United States.

Also on the Kentucky Composers Concert will be works by David Doran, Nelson Keyes, Sara Buchanan MacLean and Charles W. Smith. Using Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier as a guide, Louisville David Doran composed 24 Little Preludes and Fugues for piano solo, and dedicated each to members of the Kentucky Music Teachers Association. Campbellsville University Instructor in Music Judith Davis was the recipient of one such piece and will perform it on the program. Two other Preludes and Fugues by Doran will be performed by Patricia Barnes Griffith. Doran is professor emeritus of Jefferson Community College, and Griffith is professor of piano at Kentucky State University.

Campbellsville University's Graduate Piano Quartet will perform Nelson Keyes' 8 by 4 on 2 (or 20) on two pianos. The unique title means that the piece is for eight hands by four pianists on two pianos, or 20, as was the case at its premier performance by the All-State Teachers Ensemble in 1986, as the KMTA commissioned work of the year.

Keyes was professor of composition at the University of Louisville for many years before his untimely death in 1987. The University Graduate Piano Quartet consists of Carla Farias, Priscila Souza, Ying-Huei Ting and Zhi-Wei Zheng.

Louisvillian Denine LeBlanc will perform Sara Buchanan MacLean's Four Fairy Tales for solo piano. LeBlanc teaches piano at the University of Louisville. Stephen and Eleanor Brown from Murray will perform Charles W. Smith's Duo for two pianos. Smith taught flute and composition at Western Kentucky University until his retirement. The Browns are faculty members at Murray State University.

The concert will be followed by a reception hosted by Campbellsville University's School of Music and the Central Kentucky Music Teachers Association in the lobby of Ransdell Chapel.

For more information on this year's KMTA Conference, contact local host Dr. Wesley Roberts, professor of music, Campbellsville University, at 789-5287.

Campbellsville University is a private, comprehensive institution located in South Central Kentucky. Founded in 1906, Campbellsville University is affiliated with the Kentucky Baptist Convention and has an enrollment of 2,601 students who represent 93 Kentucky counties, 27 states and 31 foreign nations. Listed in U.S.News & World Report's 2009 “America's Best Colleges,” CU is ranked 22nd in “Best Baccalaureate Colleges” in the South for the second consecutive year. CU has been ranked 16 consecutive years with U.S.News & World Report. The university has also been named to America's Best Christian Colleges®. Campbellsville University is located 82 miles southwest of Lexington, Ky., and 80 miles southeast of Louisville, Ky. Dr. Michael V. Carter is in his tenth year as president.