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Organist Tom Bara to Perform on Tuesday, April 1

Posted March 24, 2003

HOLLAND -- Tom Bara, who is head of organ at Interlochen Arts Academy and Arts Camp, will present the annual Tom Donia Memorial Organ Recital at Hope College on Tuesday, April 1, at 8 p.m. in Dimnent Memorial Chapel.

The public is invited. Admission is free.

The program will feature work by Bach, Howells, Alain, Mendelssohn and Widor. A reception will follow.

Bara will open with the "Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 541" by Johann Sebastian Bach. Next will be the "Psalm-Prelude, Opus 32, No. 1" by Herbert Howells, and the "Allegro Choral and Fugue in D minor/major" by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. The program will continue with Jehan Alain's "Deux Danses a Agni Yavishta," "Fantasmagorie" and "Litanies." The recital will conclude with the "Allegro," "Adagio" and "Finale" from the "Symphonie VI, Opus 42, No. 6" by Charles-Marie Widor.

Bara came to Interlochen, where he is instructor of organ and class piano, from St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York City, where he was assistant organist. Prior to his appointment at St. Thomas, he served as organist-choirmaster and fine arts chair at the St. James School in St. James, Md., and as director of music ministries and organist at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Rochester, N.Y. He was organ scholar at St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1991-92.

He studied organ at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he was awarded the "Fine Arts" and "Young Artist" awards upon graduation. He then earned the B.Mus. from the University of Michigan and the M.Mus. from the Eastman School of Music. At Eastman, he received the prestigious "Performance Certificate" and the first "Harold Gleason Emerging Artist Award." His teachers included Robert Glasgow, Arthur Haas, Gerre Hancock, David Higgs, Robert Murphy and Russell Saunders.

Bara won first prize in the "Arthur Poister National Organ Competition" and was a finalist in the "National Young Artist Competition" and "Fort Wayne National Organ Competition." As soloist and as accompanist to The St. Thomas Choir of Men and Boys, he has performed widely, including concerts at the Royal Cathedral, Copenhagen; King's College, Cambridge; St. John's Smith Square, London; and St. Paul's Cathedral, London.

The recital has been made possible with the generous support of the college's Tom Donia Memorial Organ Fund. The fund was created in 1990 by family and friends of Tom Donia, a 1971 Hope graduate who died in 1990. The director of communications for the American Red Cross, Donia had a life-long interest in music.

Dimnent Memorial Chapel is located on College Avenue at 12th Street.

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