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Maryville College student Jackie Manning ’26 will present a senior organ recital titled “A Musical Polis” at 6 p.m. Thursday, April 9, in the Harold and Jean Lambert Recital Hall of the Clayton Center for the Arts.The recital is free and open to the public. The program will include original improvisations from the performer as well as works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Florence Price, Jehan Alain, Ned Rorem and Franz Tunder.
“I love when music tells a story much larger than just the notes on the page,” Manning said about the repertoire selections and overarching theme of the recital. “For instance, the story this recital tells is of re-connection through the lens of the Aristotelian polis, or this foundational idea that humanity’s essence is in its gregariousness, and that humanity’s innate desire is to exist in community."
“Today’s society is filled to the brim with technology designed to keep us connected, but instead, it isolates us. Furthermore, our own self-righteousness and prejudice against our neighbors or those perceived as the ‘other’ keep us from experiencing the things that make us human — community and connectedness. This recital seeks to share a wide range of music in an attempt to show that difference is what brings us together, rather than conformity.”
As a culminating academic experience, the senior recital also reflects Manning’s growth as a musician during their time at Maryville College.
“I didn’t even come to this college to study organ, funnily enough,” Manning said. “I started as a Music Education major with an emphasis on voice, with the hope of being heavily involved with the local musical theater scene as well. However, after beginning my first choral scholar job, I quickly realized that church music was my destiny, or at least, it is right now."
“That being said, it was a costly decision to have to relearn a whole skill essentially from scratch. Beyond mere musicianship, this college provided me with the framework to think about everything through as many lenses and perspectives as possible, which opened me up to new philosophies of music from different composers and different genres as well. This, in a recursive manner, allows me to understand those who live, believe or exist differently than I do.”
Manning’s recital also serves as both a 75th anniversary celebration of the construction of the 1951 Holtkamp organ that will be played during the recital, as well as the birthday of American classical pianist and composer Florence Price.
“There is a chance of a participatory encore of ‘Happy Birthday’ after the programmed portion of the recital ends,” Manning said. “So if you despise Bach or any of the other composers on this repertoire, there’s always ‘Happy Birthday.’”
Manning, a Bachelor of Arts in Music major, is from Chattanooga, Tennessee, and a 2022 graduate of Grace Baptist Academy.
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502 East Lamar Alexander Pkwy. , Maryville, TN, United States, Tennessee 37804
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