McDaniel College Alumna Margaret Whitfield of Springfield, Va., Performs in Organ Recital

McDaniel College's Organ Recital by Distinguished Alumni is Saturday, April 28, 3 p.m., in Baker Memorial Chapel

WESTMINSTER, MD (03/23/2012)(readMedia)-- Margaret Whitfield of Springfield, Va., a 1958 alumna of McDaniel College, performs on a renovated Aeolian-Skinner organ in a special recital during the college's Reunion Weekend. Free and open to the public, the event takes place Saturday, April 28, at 3 p.m., in Baker Memorial Chapel at McDaniel College, 2 College Hill, Westminster, Md. See recital program below.

Margaret Whitfield earned a bachelor's degree from Western Maryland (now McDaniel) College. After graduation, she spent three years in Japan as a Methodist missionary teaching organ and piano, directing choirs, and performing. She then went on to earn a master's degree in organ from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y. Throughout her career, she has performed an organ concerto with orchestra at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., directed orchestras in Fairfax County (Va.) Public Schools, conducted the Langley High School (McLean, Va.,) Orchestra at New York's Carnegie Hall, and was named twice as an outstanding music educator in the State of Virginia. She has also served as the piano accompanist for Suzuki festivals at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Va., as well as Kennedy Center and DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. She is currently the organist at Fairfax United Methodist Church in Fairfax, Va.

McDaniel's restored 2,100 pipe organ was originally donated in 1958 by McDaniel alumni Roger J. Whiteford (1906) and Joseph S. Whiteford (1943), who became president of the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company in Boston. The yearlong restoration project by the DiGennaro-Hart Organ Company in McLean, Va., was made possible by a gift from McDaniel alumna Louise S. Widdup (1948). Tonal regulations were completed by Lawrence Trupiano and Bynum Petty.

For more information, call 410-857-2599. Visit www.mcdaniel.edu for information about the college and the music department.

Recital Program:

"Praeludium in A-Moll" (J.S. Bach)

"Now Thank We All Our God" (S. Karg-Elert)

Performed by McDaniel alumna Esther Gay of Williamsburg, Va.

"Toccata on Amor Satis Est" (P. Ayres)

Sinfonia to "Wir danken dir, Gott" (J.S. Bach, arr. H. Grace)

Performed by McDaniel alumnus Mark Gorman of Durham, N.C.

"Prelude and Fugue on the Name of Alain" (M. Durufle)

Performed by McDaniel alumna Jen Newgent of Westminster, Md.

"Christus, Der Ist Mein Leben" (J. Pachelbel)

"Liebster Jesu, Wir Sind Hier" (J.S. Bach)

"In Dir Ist Freude" (J.S. Bach)

Performed by McDaniel alumna Joan MacDonald of Westminster, Md.

"Solemn Prelude" (A. Rowley)

"Andante Sostenuto from Gothic Symphony" (C. Widor, ed. A. Schreiner)

Performed by McDaniel alumna Mildred (Millie) Dickey Thomas of Golden, Colo.

"Chorale No. 3 in a minor" (C. Franck)

Performed by McDaniel alumna Margaret Whitfield of Springfield, Va.

# # #

McDaniel College, recognized nationally among "40 Colleges that Change Lives" and U.S. News top-tier liberal arts colleges, is a four-year private college of the liberal arts and sciences offering more than 60 undergraduate programs of study, including dual and student-designed majors, plus 20 highly regarded graduate programs. Its hallmark faculty-student collaborations in research, teaching and mentoring plus hundreds of leadership and service opportunities enrich a lively learning experience that is rooted in a personalized interdisciplinary and global curriculum. Innovative January courses take students to points all over the world while McDaniel's degree-granting European campus offers a unique opportunity for international study at the only American university in Budapest, Hungary. A diverse and close-knit community of 1,600 undergraduates and 1,560 part-time graduate students, McDaniel also boasts a spectacular 160-acre hilltop campus in Westminster, Md., an hour or less from Baltimore, D.C., the Chesapeake Bay, an Amtrak station and BWI international airport.