Michael Braz
SAI Friend of the Arts Michael Braz
is a member of the Georgia Southern University Graduate
and Honors faculties, teaching theory/aural skills,
orchestration and choral arranging classes, as well
as courses on Finale music software and Wagner's
Ring cycle. He performs carillon concerts twice
a week in his After Noon series and has recorded
a CD of carillon music available through the university.
He has completed the last of six sacred works for
a consortium of three Northern Mississippi churches
under a Faith Partners grant from the American Composers
Forum and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. One
of these, a setting of Come, Thou Fount of Every
Blessing, utilizing both the Nettleton and Warrenton
melodies, will be published by Hinshaw Music, Inc.
in 2002. In addition, he was conductor/clinician for
the 2001 Mississippi All-State Junior High Choir,
in Jackson. His composition Jubilate Deo, written
for the Raleigh Boychoir (three-part treble voices/piano,
Colla Voce Music, Inc.), was reviewed in the March
2001 issue of Choral Journal. Currently, he
serves as adviser to the Georgia Southern University
chapters of SAI and Phi Mu Alpha. His arrangement
of America, the Beautiful, by S. Ward and K.
Bates, for three-part treble choir and piano, was
published by Colla Voce Music, Inc. Lynn Gackle Choral
Series in 2001. Heard first at Clayton State College
and University, in Morrow, GA, were two popular compositions,
That Man Is A Success, for TTBB choir and piano,
commissioned by the Men's Glee Club of the Georgia
Institute of Technology, William Caldwell, Director;
and Salute to Georgia Tech, for SATB choir,
TTBB choir, and two pianos, commissioned by the Chamber
Choir and the Men's Glee Club of the Georgia Institute
of Technology, Caldwell, Director. Braz can be contacted
at (912) 681-5397 (school) or at mbraz@
gasou.edu.
Premieres
Works premiered under the Faith Partners
program were Holy Mystery, Sacred Sign, for
SATB choir and keyboard, with the choir of the First
United Methodist Church of Columbus, MS, Put LaBarre,
Director of Music; The Glory of These Forty Days,
for SAB choir and cello, with the choir of the First
Presbyterian Church of Greenwood, MS, Karl Zinsmeister,
Director of Music; and We Praise Thee, O God (Te
Deum Laudamus), for SATB choir, keyboard, and
brass quintet, with the choir of the First United
Methodist Church of Tupelo, MS, Beverly Clement, Director
of Music, and the composer conducting. To honor Rev.
John Bressler upon his retirement, the choir of First
Presbyterian Church of Statesboro, GA commissioned
and introduced O Lord, Our Lord (Psalm 8),
for SATB choir and keyboard, led by Director of Music
Pamela Radford.
Publications
A Chinese Springsong; SSA choir/piano;
Colla Voce Music, Inc. Jo-Michael Scheibe Choral Series,
2001.
