10/26/2005

Contact: K.E. Schwab  -- 724-738-2199;  e-mail: karl.schwab@sru.edu

SRU VOICE MAJOR FROM BUTLER TAKES RECENT WILLIAMSON COMPETITION AT SRU

     SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. –  Bass-baritone Stephen Ball, a Butler senor voice major at Slippery Rock University, took top honors in last Friday’s Chad Williamson Memorial Scholarship Competition by offering his version of Mozart’s “Madamina!” from “Don Giovanni,” and Ralph Vaughan William’s “The Vagabond.”

     The annual competition, now in its 13th year, honors Chad Williamson, late son of Karen Williamson (left), former executive assistant in SRU’s Office of University Advancement. Mr. Williamson had planned to enroll at SRU before being killed in a traffic mishap. His family created the scholarship as a remembrance.

          Ball, who was recently featured in a tribute Frank Sinatra offered by the SRU Jazz Ensemble, has also performed in the Pittsburgh Opera’s “Rigoletto.” He spent five week last summer in Lucca, Italy, studying with the Opera Theatre and Music Festival affiliated with the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

     Sixteen other SRU voice majors competed in the annual scholarship program judged by Daphne Alderson, a member of the Seton-Hill University music faculty and well-known performer in New York City and Pittsburgh.

PN, PGN, WPN, PRS

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