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March 29, 2024

Show binds Walters Museum and Morgan State

By ANNE HOLLMULLER | October 6, 2016

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RACHEL SAMPLE/CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0 The Walters Art Museum served as the collaborative venue for Art and Music Bring Us Together.

Art and Music Bring Us Together was a concert at the Walters Art Museum focused on the sensory experience of art and music. The performers were Daniel Colin Xavier Rich, a baritone, and Samuel Springer, who played piano. The goal of the evening was to emphasize the broader connections between music and art. The concert was held in the sculpture garden at the museum. Visitors were encouraged to imagine walking through the galleries and listening to this music, as William and Henry Walters the museuem founders, and their guests might have done decades ago.

The concert included a number of songs drawn from the 18th and 20th centuries, selections that drew from a wide collection of artists and genres.

The program included excerpts from a German opera by Wagner, a hymn from Mendelssohn and a traditional spiritual. The program finished out with a number of songs from musical theater. These included stunning versions of “The Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha; “Make Them Hear You” from Ragtime; and a breathtaking cover of “Pure Imagination” from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Rich is from Baltimore, Maryland and has performed at the Gilliam Concert Hall, the Pealer Recital Hall, the Strathmore in Bethesda, the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center and the University of Maryland College Park’s Kay Theatre. His most recent achievement is a third-place finish at the 2016 Harlem Opera Theater Vocal Competition. He is a senior at Morgan State University and is currently completing his degree as a music major with a concentration in vocal performance. The brilliantly talented baritone thrilled the audience with his passionate renditions of songs from a range of styles and periods.

Springer is a recitalist, accompanist and church musician who has studied at Trinity College of Music, London; Yale School of Music; and the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Springer has received a number of prizes in organ performance and his studies, including the W. F. Langmaid Prize for organ from Trinity College of Music, London, the Harry Jepson Memorial Scholarship at the Yale School of Music, and was named the Hugh Giles Scholar at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Springer also received the Lynn Hebden Award for organ performance from the Peabody Conservatory of Music. Springer is the Minister of Music at Faith Presbyterian Church in Baltimore and is on the faculties of music at the Morgan State University and the Peabody Preparatory.

While introducing the evening’s concert, Alexander Jarman, the Manager of Adult and Community Outreach Programs at the Walters Art Museum, discussed the importance of events like this concert. In a museum that houses 55 centuries of art from all over the world, bringing living artists into the museum is crucial for its ongoing mission.

This concert is but one result of a strategic partnership between Morgan State University and the Walters Art Museum. On April 27, 2015, the two institutions announced a multi-year initiative designed to bring together two important Baltimore cultural icons.

A press release detailing the new partnership described the goal of the partnership, as well as both institutions’ hopes for the future.

“Over a period of three to five years, the Walters Art Museum and Morgan State University expect to collaborate in a variety of areas such as: Host and co-sponsor art exhibitions; Conduct and publish joint research; Exchange expertise in the collection, storage, preservation, and exhibition of the museums’ holdings; and Develop courses related to art and museum management and exchange employees for teaching, study, research, or professional development opportunities.”


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