Dr. Joan DeVee Dixon, a popular local organist and professor in the Frostburg State University Department of Music, spent the last two weeks of August on a concert tour of England, where she performed concerts at Westminster Abbey and St. Dominic’s Priory in London, Town Hall and Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford, and Tewkesbury Abbey. This was her second concert tour of Great Britain where she has also performed at Westminster Cathedral and The Temple Church in London, and Worcester Cathedral.
Her programs featured music by American composers. Included in the Westminster program were Psalm and hymn settings by Emma Lou Diemer and several African-American spirituals. The Town Hall concerts featured a lighter repertoire including Dixon’s own arrangements from “The Sound of Music” and Scott Joplin’s “Stoptime Rag.”
"It is a tremendous honor and privilege to be asked to perform at places like Westminster Abbey and Oxford Christ Church Cathedral. It is like a dream to get to play there,” says Dixon. “There is so much time-honored history in those spaces that you can’t help but feel overwhelmed by it all.”
During her tour, she was asked to return and perform next year, and is already making plans for 2005.
Dixon will repeat her programs from London and Oxford with concerts throughout this region this fall. She will be performing at First Presbyterian Church in Cumberland on Sunday, Sept. 19 at 4 p.m. and at Salem United Church of Christ in Frostburg on Tuesday, Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. Both programs are free and open to the public.
For more information, call 301-687-4109.
