Rhodes Singers

Tuthill, son of the architect of New York's Carnegie Hall, was a clarinetist who also founded the group that was to become the Memphis Symphony Orchestra.

Professor Tuthill established the tradition of the annual choir tour throughout the United States; in 1976, his successor, Professor Tony Lee Garner ’65, led the inaugural international concert tour, bringing sacred music and southern spirituals to Romania in conjunction with Friendship Ambassadors.

Professor Garner also created the MasterSingers Chorale in the early 1990s, bringing together alumni and community singers.

The concert featured Lauridsen's "Mid-Winter Songs," "Madrigali: Six "Firesongs" on Italian Renaissance Poems," "O Magnum Mysterium," "Les Chanson des Roses," and "Lux Aeterna," with Lauridsen accompanying the Singers on the "Dirait-on" movement of "Les Chanson des Roses."

In the Fall of 2006 the Rhodes Singers returned to Carnegie Hall to perform the Carnegie Hall premiere of Morten Lauridsen's "Nocturnes" and "Lux Aeterna," again with the composer accompanying them at the piano for the "Nocturnes."