Released: Dec. 1, 1999

Holiday Concert to feature baritone Troy Cook
along with Centre Singers and Danville Children's Choir

DANVILLE, KY - The 1999 Centre College Holiday Concert is set for Sunday, Dec. 5, and will feature baritone Troy Cook, a 1993 Centre graduate who sings with the New York City Opera and the Metropolitan Opera. Cook will serve as the featured soloist in a concert that also will bring together the Centre Singers, the Danville Children's Choir and instrumental ensembles including CentreStrings and the Handbell Ensemble.

The concert will begin at 3 p.m. in Newlin Hall in Centre's Norton Center for the Arts. The program will include Vivaldi's "Gloria" and a setting of the same text by 20th-century English composer Gerald Finzi. The children's choir will contribute a number of popular holiday songs.

Centre music professor Barbara Hall will serve as conductor, along with Bruce Richardson, founder and director of the Danville Children's Choir.

Troy Cook earned a masterŐs in music from the Eastman School after graduating from Centre. and he has become one of the most sought-after new singers in the country. His performances with the Florida Grand Opera won rave reviews ("Troy Cook ... has a fine supple baritone voice with incredible reach into the tenor range" -- Coral Gables Gazette, "His acting was perfect and his baritone resonant" - Miami Eastsider), and he has sung with the Colorado Opera, the Aspen Opera Theater Center and the Eastman Opera Theater.

During the 1999-2000 season, Cook has made his New York City Opera debut in the trilogy Central Park, in the roles of the policeman in The Food of Love and the panhandler in Strawberry Fields. He created both roles with Glimmerglass Opera in the summer of 1999, in performances taped for national broadcast on PBS.

Concert tickets are available at the Norton Center box office. Telephone 606-236-4692 or toll-free 1-877-HIT SHOW. General admission is $6; tickets for children and senior citizens are $4.

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Communications Office
Centre College
600 W. Walnut Street
Danville, KY 40422

Fine arts coordinator: Mary Freear Williams
Telephone 606-238-5424 - trllngrp@centre.edu