Jim Carr: 50 Years of Music

If you’ve been a regular worshiper at First-Plymouth Church or attendant of Abendmusik choral concerts, you’ll no doubt recognize a familiar face in the back of the choir loft. The tall fair-haired bass, usually toward the center of the row is University Emeritus Chemistry professor James Carr, currently holding the award for singer with the longest active tenure with the chorus. This year marks the 50th year that Jim has sung at First-Plymouth.  Although he has been retired from UNL for several years, he still keeps an office in Hamilton Hall, and is actively working on a number of research projects. These range from providing research for those monitoring the safety of Lincoln’s drinking water to studying the effects of corrosion on undersea shipwrecks such as the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.

Jim has been a member of a series of choruses beginning in his elementary school days in Ames, Iowa, with the children’s choir at Ames Congregational Church, and continuing through his university studies at Iowa State, graduate school at Purdue (where he received his PhD), an internship in Cincinnati and post-doctoral work in North Carolina. He even found a choir to join while serving in the Army at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey.

When Jim arrived in Lincoln in 1966, ready to begin his tenure at UNL, he looked around for a choir to join, and auditioned for the Lincoln Symphony Orchestra Chorale. That year the LSO performed “Elijah”, Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana”, and William Walton’s “Belshazzar’s Feast” and Jim made the acquaintance of Dick Morris, accompanist for the LSO chorale and organist for First-Plymouth Congregational Church. This led to his joining this choir, and the 50 years of steady singing that our church has enjoyed. During the next six years Dick Morris led the First-Plymouth choir into branching out and performing special concerts in addition to the Sunday church services. Early concert endeavors included the Bach “St. Matthew Passion” and a staged version of “Amahl and the Night Visitors”.

Many of our present choir members are not aware that Jim also has performed on stage, and it was in his rendition of The Girl’s Father in “The Fantasticks” that Jim’s future wife Rosalind first noticed him. Later, Roz’s roommate who was dating a grad student in the UNL chemistry Department arranged a blind date between Jim and Roz under the pretext of needing a fourth for bridge. Neither Roz nor Jim found out until later that both the third and fourth were set up for each other.

By 1972, Jim was in his third year on the Board of the Music and Fine Arts, so when Dick Morris announced he was accepting a position in Des Moines, Jim was tapped to chair the search committee to find a replacement. A group of six finalists were vetted, a selection was made, and an offer extended, but the chosen candidate opted not to accept the offer. The committee was trying to decide whether to move down the list or re-open the applications when Jim received a call from Jack Levick, just returned from the national American Guild of Organists Convention where he had heard about the opening. Jim was pleased enough with what he heard that he convinced the committee to invite Jack in for an interview and audition.

Senior Minister Otis Young and the members of the committee were impressed with Levick’s playing, his ideas for a concert series, his pedigree, and his relative youth. That night the committee took Jack to dinner, and “He must have realized that the interview was going very well, because after dinner he excused himself from the table, and the committee, not wanting to miss the opportunity, took a vote immediately, and made him an offer when he returned.”

In 1973 and 1974 Levick began scheduling his first concert season with Bach’s “Magnificat”, Vivaldi’s “Gloria”( starring our own Lorrie Beadell) and invited Maurice Durufle’ to conduct his “Requiem” with his wife accompanying on the organ. Unfortunately Mr. Durufle’ was taken ill and was not able to travel, but Madame Durufle’ made the trip, played the organ part, Jack conducted, and the tradition of inviting notable composers and conductors to join forces to present major works on the concert series was begun. “Abendmusik”, the concert series was established.

Jim has enjoyed a wide range of experiences while a part of the First-Plymouth Choir and Abendmusik family through the years. Highlights include singing with composers Randall Thompson, Daniel Pinkham, John Rutter, Aaron Copland, and Daniel Fanshawe. The collaborations with choirs from Omaha, UNL, Union College, Nebraska Wesleyan, and Doane College, (now University) gave him a special appreciation for the First Plymouth Choir. And how many singers can say they’ve sung under the baton of such notable conductors as John Hotchkis, Lionel Friend, John Rutter, John Ferguson, Edward Polochick, Sir David Willcocks, and Robert Shaw? International travel opportunities such as the invitation to the International Choir Festival in Coventry, England, and the trip to Poland and Russia also stand out to Jim

He says one of his favorite moments came with a performance of the Russian folk tune “Kalinka” at the St. Petersburg Concert Hall. The audience applause at the close of that song was “like nothing I’ve ever heard, before.”  Perhaps his favorite moment came in the 1980 concert “Pomp and Circumstance: Ceremonial Music for Royal Occasions” in which University President Ron Roskens introduced Sir Edward Elgar’s “Land of Hope and Glory” by saying, “ If you’ve only heard “Pomp and Circumstance” played by a high school band, you’ve got a real treat in store.” The combined forces of the Abendmusik Chorus, the Doane College Choir, The Nebraska Wesleyan Choir, The Nebraska Chamber Orchestra, Members of the Strategic Air Command Band, and the Plymouth Brass proceeded to raise the roof.

Jim found time to do all this singing while pursuing a distinguished career in academia. In 1996 Jim was presented the University of Nebraska (System Wide) Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award. He is also a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers. He put on an entertaining Big Red Road Show chemistry exhibition for several years recruiting science students from around the state, and served as freshman coordinator for the Department of Chemistry for 18 years. We’ve been lucky to have such an outstanding man in our midst.