Music for our All Souls Day Requiem Mass - with guest baritone Scott Bearden

Our All Souls Requiem on November 2, 2025 will feature the Requiem, Op. 48 by Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1845 –1924). Among the most prominent French composers of his generation, Fauré began his musical studies at the age of nine at the École Niedermeyer in Paris, a conservatory for training church musicians. Following his graduation in 1865, he held several posts as organist and choirmaster, the most notable of which included his work as choirmaster at the church of Saint Sulpice and culminated in his 1874 appointment as deputy to Camille Saint-Saëns at the Church of the Madeleine, where he eventually ascended to the role of principal organist. He was also appointed the head of the Paris Conservatory in 1905.

Gabriel Fauré in 1875

Fauré's Requiem, Op. 48 has been described as "a lullaby of death." He himself said of the work "it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience." Unlike some other monumental late Romantic era settings of the texts of the Requiem, this setting is useful in a liturgical context, showing its composer's long experience as a church musician. Originally scored for choir, soloists , and a small instrumental ensemble to enhance the organ, later orchestrated for full orchestra, it is equally effective performed with solo organ accompaniment. First performed in the United States in 1931, it remains an exceptionally popular work.

We will have a visiting baritone soloist for this occasion, my good friend Scott Bearden, who teaches at the University of Arkansas, will be joining us to sing the solos of the Requiem. Jackson's own Alyssa Marshall will be the soprano soloist.

baritone Scott Bearden

Baritone Scott Bearden is a past Winner of the Chester Ludgin Verdi Baritone Competition in New York City as well as a Winner and Audience Favorite of the Irene Dalis Voice Competition in

San Jose, California. Mr Bearden has sung many of the Dramatic Italian operatic roles of composer Giuseppe Verdi, including the

title roles of Rigoletto and Falstaff, the latter at the Tanglewood Music Festival under the baton of Maestro Seiji Ozawa. His Verdian roles include Conte di Luna in Il Trovatore, Renato in Un Ballo in Maschera, Amonasro in Aida, Germont in La Traviata and Iago in Otello. Other roles of note include Scarpia in Puccini’s Tosca, Michele in Il Tabarro and Tonio in I Pagliacci. Mr. Bearden can be heard on the Vox Classics recording of Britten’s Albert Herring and as the tile role of The Secret Agent, based on a novel by Joseph Conrad and composed by Michael Dellaira. He has performed some forty operatic roles with leading national opera companies including San Francisco Opera, Opera Boston, Opera San Jose, Knoxville Opera, Toledo Opera and Opera New Jersey, among many others. Mr Bearden is an Associate Professor of Voice at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. He is a graduate of Central Michigan University and the Manhattan School of Music. He, his wife Wendy ,and their dachshund Mabel Rae reside in Monticello, Arkansas.

soprano Alyssa Marshall

Alyssa Marshall, soprano, a native of northeast Texas, earned her Master’s Degree in Opera Performance at Temple University’s Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia, during which time she sang in various operatic roles as well as in the chorus of the Opera Company of Philadelphia. Her undergraduate degree is from SUNY Purchase College’s Conservatory of Music. She now lives in Jackson, Tennessee, where she is a 4th grade teacher at Thelma Barker Elementary School. Alyssa has taught voice lessons for several years, she sings with the Jackson Symphony Orchestra, and enjoys being involved in local theater productions as well as Hub City Theatre CO’s Improv Team. Some of her favorite past roles (both opera and musical theater) include: Musetta in La Boheme, Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Sister Constance in Dialogues of the Carmelites, Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, Sarah Brown in Guys & Dolls, and Irene Molloy in Hello, Dolly! She adores singing oratorio pieces; her most notable solo performances are Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana, Schubert’s Mass No. 2 in G Major, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor, and Mozart’s Requiem.