by Mario Buchanan
On Friday evening, February 14, we lost a great, Dr. J.D. Goddard. We have many teachers who influence our decisions, but there is always one who helps solidify what we want to do with our lives. J.D. was mine.
I first met J.D. when I was in high school. Nancy Ulrich, my voice teacher at the time, told me about a choir she sang in: Master Singers Inc., of which J.D. was the Founder and Artistic Director. Nancy and I recorded an audition tape to send to J.D. He accepted me and told Nancy to bring me along to rehearsals. My first meeting with J.D. was probably typical — I was intimidated by his tall stature, but immediately put at ease by his calm and caring nature.
The first concert I sang with the group was the Verdi Requiem. I was 14 years old. Throughout high school and the beginning of college, I got to sing some of the greatest pieces of choral literature: Brahms’ and Mozart’s Requiems, Vierne’s and Widor’s Messes Solennelles, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle, Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Schumann’s Requiem, Rossini’s Stabat Mater, and the list goes on and on. [Read more…]
For his final performance with Master Singers Inc., the Akron-based chorus he founded 17 years ago, conductor J.D. Goddard will lead two of his all-time favorite works by Johannes Brahms — the Fourth Symphony
For most people, the name Antonio Salieri denotes mediocrity envious of genius, and is inextricably (and unfavorably) associated with Mozart. In Pushkin’s play Mozart and Salieri, Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera of the same name, Peter Shaffer’s play Amadeus and its film adaptation, Salieri is depicted as a jealous composer who poisons Mozart after being upstaged by him.