Copperas Cove vocalists have the spotlight at CTC’s Celestial Concert, “Total Eclipse”
Special to the Leader-Press
The Central Texas College Fine Arts Department will host a guest artists’ concert in advance of total solar eclipse activities.
“Total Eclipse: Celestial Songs to Commemorate the Solar Eclipse of 2024” will be at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 2 in Anderson Student Center at CTC.
Guest artists will include soprano soloist Jasmine Haghighatian Simmons of Copperas Cove, accompanist Heeyoung Cho of Harker Heights, and the Voices of Cove Men’s Choir from Copperas Cove High School under the direction of Rick Gates.
Selections will include “Total Eclipse!” from Handel’s Samson; “The Sun Whose Rays are All Ablaze,” from Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado; and Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” among others.
Simmons has performed with the Austin and San Antonio operas, the San Antonio Playhouse and numerous other venues. She holds degrees from Texas State and the University of Texas at San Antonio. She currently operates a Central Texas voice studio.
Cho has performed around Texas, in Massachusetts and South Korea. Her music degrees are from Kyunghee University in Seoul, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Baylor University. She is staff accompanist at Copperas Cove High.
Admission is $5 cash and is free for children 12 and under. Proceeds benefit the Concert Series Music Scholarship.
“We are so excited to have artists of this caliber in our own backyard,” said Celinda Hallbauer, CTC music program coordinator. “The repertoire the artists have chosen for this performance is so appropriate to our anticipation of the upcoming eclipse.”
Central Texas College will be in the heart of the eclipse on April 8, enjoying one of the longest durations of totality in the state.
The campus will darken at 1:36 p.m. and experience total sunblock for 4 minutes, 16 seconds.
To commemorate the historic event sweeping across campus, the college will offer an “Eclipse Over Central Texas” weekend of events and programs including dome shows, speakers and other events.
Tickets for Planetarium events can be purchased at the Mayborn Science Theater or by calling 254-526-1662. For more information, go to www.ctcd.edu/solar-eclipse.