The Delta State University Department of Music presents MJ Britton in her senior voice recital on April 25 at 7:30 p.m. in the Recital Hall of the Bologna Performing Arts Center. The recital is free and open to the public.
Britton, a senior voice major from Olive Branch, Mississippi, is the daughter of Bill and Vicki Britton. She studies with Dr. Laurissa Backlin, assistant professor of voice at Delta State.
Since entering DSU in 2013, she has been involved in the DSU Chorale, Chamber Singers and Women’s Chorale (both as a singer and conductor), and she placed third in the 2015 MS NATS competition in the sophomore Musical Theatre category. She has since advanced to the semi-final rounds of the Senior Women category and Senior Women Musical Theatre category at the 2016 Regional NATS competition. Most recently, she was awarded second place in both the classical senior women category and the upper college musical theatre women category at the 2017 Mississippi NATS.
Britton was the chaplain of Mu Phi Epsilon for the spring semester of 2017, and performed in DSU’s Honor’s Recital in April of 2016 and 2017. She began her vocal study in high school under the direction of Tara Tanner. She entered DSU as a freshman in the fall of 2013 under the direction of Dr. Mary Lenn Buchanan, and continued to study under Dr. Chad Payton in the fall of 2014 until the spring of 2016. Britton joined Dr. Laurissa Backlin’s studio in the fall of 2016.
Additionally, Britton was the winner of the Leola G. Williams award for analytical writing and was named Best Supporting Actress for the staged reading of Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” for the 2014-15 school year. She also was awarded the Maggie Flowers Ewing award for Vocal Music Education majors in the spring of 2016. Britton was also selected to be an Orientation Leader for the summer of 2016, and was named liaison to the deans of the colleges and to the various department heads.
Britton will be performing compositions by Mozart, Pergolesi, Wolf, Lambert, Idle, Whitacre, Barber, Schumann, Duparc, Massenet, Thomas and Copland.