Robert Ward, an award-winning composer and the first chancellor of UNC School of the Arts, was one of four people to receive this year's Opera Honors awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, NEA officials announced last month.
The Opera Honors are the highest the country bestows in opera. The other recipients were Speight Jenkins, the general director of Seattle Opera, and singers John Conklin and Risë Stevens.
Ward, whose opera "The Crucible" won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1962, will receive $25,000 and be honored during ceremonies Oct. 27 in Washington.
Piedmont Opera and the A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute at UNCSA will present "The Crucible" March 16, 18 and 20 at the Stevens Center. Several educational events will surround this special joint production, including a free one March 17 that will feature the composer.
Ward, 93, lives in Durham. He has also taught at Duke University, in addition to composing several operas, symphonies, concertos and songs.
Moravians plan events for July 4
Moravians will gather in Old Salem to celebrate Independence Day in two ways.
At 2 p.m. Monday in Home Moravian Church, 529 S. Church St., the Moramus Chorale will present Johann Friedrich Peter's "Freudenpsalm" (Psalm of Joy). This work, accompanied by organ and orchestra, also features parts for solo soprano (Chelsea Bonagura), mezzo-soprano (Cristy Lynn Brown) and baritone (Scott MacLeod). It was first performed in 1783 during the first recorded celebration of Independence Day.
The program at Home Moravian will feature Nola Reed Knouse's "What is Peace?"
At 5 p.m., a musical procession around Salem Square will commemorate the same walk that Moravians took during the first Independence Day celebration.
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