The Heisey Wind Ensemble continues its 2006-07 Season on at 8 p.m. on Saturday (Dec. 9) with a concert at Denison University's Swasey Chapel. Guest vocal soloists are Kathleen Sasnett from Gettysburg College and James Moore from Howard University. They will be performing Robert Nugent's arrangement of "In The Bleak Midwinter," "O Holy Night," and a delightful medley of songs from "A New Birth ... A New Beginning," a Christmas choral cantata by John Purifoy. Concert tickets are available at the door; cost is $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students, and students under 12 are free. Area band directors have free student passes available for their students.

Other works on the program include: "Among The Leaves So Green" by Nugent, a talented arranger who is on staff at Grace Brethren Church in Westerville; "Lux Aurumque" (Light and Gold) by Eric Whitacre; "Good King Wenceslas" arranged by Arthur Harris and adapted for the Heisey Wind Ensemble by Ken McCoy; "Jingle Bell Fantasy" arranged by John Wasson; "A Christmas Portrait" arranged by Jerry Nowak; Leroy Anderson's "A Christmas Festival"; "Home for Christmas" arranged by John Higgins, Victor Herbert's "March of the Toys"; and "Sleigh Ride" by Leroy Anderson.

Sasnett has performed in America and Europe. Critics have described her as having a "voice of great beauty" and "virtuosic technique and control." An award-winning soprano, Sasnett performs in opera as well as in oratorio and musical theater. She has performed more than 25 professional symphonies and choral groups and taken 15 leading roles with major theater companies. She will perform the leading role of Magda in Menotti's The Consul and will tour with the American Opera Studio in Prague, Czechoslovakia; Bratislava, Slovakia; Szentendre, Hungary; Ceske Budejovice, Bohemia; and Budapest, Hungary in July 2007. A member of Phi Kappa Phi, Sasnet earned her doctorate of musical arts degree in vocal performance at Ohio State, where she also was awarded a graduate fellowship and the Graduate Outstanding Achievement Award. She is an assistant professor of voice and opera at the Sunderman Conservatory of Music at Gettysburg College (Pa.).

Moore, a winner of seven major vocal competitions, performs in Europe and the United States as both baritone and tenor. Included in his credits are performances as soloist with more than 25 leading conductors and orchestras including The Seattle Symphony with Gerard Schwartz and the Erie Philharmonic Orchestra with Hugh Keelan. A versatile actor, Moore is equally at home performing musical theatre and has logged more than 500 such performances as Billy in "Carousel," Curly in "Oklahoma!," Emil in "South Pacific", and Captain von Trapp in "The Sound of Music." He earned his doctorate in vocal performance at the University of Washington and is currently assistant professor of voice at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

Russel Mikkelson, the Heisey Wind Ensemble's music director, also serves as director of university bands and associate professor of conducting at Ohio State. He is a member of the American Bandmasters Association, the most prestigious American honor a band conductor can receive.

Calendar Listing:

CALENDAR LISTING: Denison University, Granville -- Heisey Wind Ensemble performs Christmas music; 8 p.m., Saturday (Dec. 9), Swasey Chapel. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students over 12. Call (740) 344-8333 to confirm information.

About Denison:

Denison University, founded in 1831, is an independent, residential liberal arts institution located in Granville, Ohio. A highly selective college enrolling 2,100 full-time undergraduate students from all 50 states and dozens of foreign countries, Denison is a place where innovative faculty and motivated students collaborate in rigorous scholarship, civic engagement and the cultivation of independent thinking.

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