Ouachita Stories

Ouachita Baptist University student Alexis Pace recently won the first place scholarship at the Hot Springs Music Club Scholarship Auditions. Incoming Ouachita freshman Houston Murray claimed second place in the competition.

“When I got the message that I won, I was ecstatic,” said Pace, a freshman musical theatre major from Sugar Land, Texas. Along with first place honors, Pace won a $1,000 prize for her performance of “Caro Mio Ben” by G. Giordano and “Always True to You in My Fashion” from Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate.

Each participant was required to sing two selections for a panel of judges as well as discuss their college and career goals.

“The Hot Springs Music Club, which is a chapter of the National Federation of Music Clubs, holds annual scholarship auditions for students who are majoring or planning to major in music,” explained Suzetta Glenn, Pace’s vocal instructor at Ouachita. “At the time of audition the applicant must be a full-time college student enrolled as a music major at an accredited college or university for the coming year or a high school senior intending to be a music major with acceptance at an accredited college or university.”

Pace expressed her appreciation for Glenn’s instruction, saying, “Ms. Glenn helped by giving me a ton of feedback. For the classical song, ‘Caro Mio Ben,’ she worked with me on getting my voice to project, and she made sure that I was pronouncing the Italian the right way. For my musical theatre piece, ‘Always True to You,’ she helped me by working with me to strengthen my mixed voice, so that I could better hit one of the notes at the end of the song. She also helped with staging it, so that my passion for musical theatre really showed.”

As the first place winner, Pace will perform at the club’s Honors Concert on Sunday, May 9, at 7 p.m. at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Hot Springs.

Houston Murray, a senior at Lakeside High School in Hot Springs, Ark., earned second place and $500 in scholarship money. Murray will be an incoming freshman music major at Ouachita in the fall of 2010.

“I knew what I wanted one of my songs to be and that was ‘The Music of the Night’ [from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera], but I had trouble choosing my second piece,” Murray said. “I carefully sang through three books of music for that perfect tune and ended up with a beautiful piece called ‘Flow Gently Sweet Afton’ [based on a poem by Robert Burns].”

For more information, contact Suzetta Glenn at [email protected] or (870) 245-4159.

By Meg Gosser