Mozart Requiem: Soloists

Arietha Lockhart, Soprano

Ms. Lockhart is a member of the Grammy Award winning Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and has performed with numerous performing organizations including the Atlanta Chamber Players and the Atlanta Baroque Orchestra. She was the voice of the Southern Spirit during the 1996 Centennial Olympics.  Ms. Lockhart has won many prizes and honors including a Fellowship to Aspen Music Festival in 1999, to sing the role of Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos and the 2013 American Prize in Voice. She is sought out for her interpretations of early music and contemporary art songs and opera. She is a former K-5 music teacher for the DeKalb School District and serves as Co-President of the Atlanta chapter of Mu Phi Epsilon International Music Fraternity.  Mr. Shaw said of Arietha, "(She) is a young artist of taste and intelligence with a very beautiful high soprano voice". 


Kate Murray, Alto

Ms. Murray is the Co-Director of Choruses at Paideia, where she has taught for two decades conducting elementary, junior high and high school choruses and musicals. She frequently serves as guest clinician for school and church choirs, teaching vocal methods for the choral singer, and she teaches voice class for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus. Kate sings and records with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus and Chamber Chorus and with Conspirare, a professional chorus from Austin, Texas. A student of the renowned contralto, Florence Kopleff, Kate is a sought after soloist in the southeast. She received her Bachelor of Music degree from Miami University of Ohio and her Master of Vocal Performance from the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Rick Clement, Tenor

Mr. Clement studied voice at Georgia State University and at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.  He was a Tanglewood Music Festival Fellow in the 1991-1992 season, and the winner of a 1994 Richard Tucker Music Foundation Jacobson Study Grant.  He made his New York debut as Tamino in The Magic Flute during the 1997-1998 season.  Other engagements have included the Vancouver Opera and the Boston Lyric Opera, as Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Fernando in Cosi Fan Tutti, Fenton in Falstaff, Little Bat McLean in Susannah, and Nanki-Poo inThe Mikado.  He has performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonic under the baton of Robert Spano, and the New York Philharmonic under Sir Colin Davis.  He has appeared with Charles Dutoit, Christopher Hogwood, Neemi Jarvi, Wolfgang Swallisch, Robert Shaw, Michael Tilson Tomas,  and Hugh Wolff.  He has sung the Mass in B minor of Bach with Seiji Ozawa at Japan's Saito Kinen Fetival, and Mendelssohn's Die  Erste Walpurgisnacht with Kurt Masur and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. 

Jay Champion, Bass

Mr. Champion is a member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus.  He is Director of Choral Activities at Lost Mountain Middle School in Kennesaw, where he also teaches general music, and electronic music composition. He is sought after as a soloist, clinician, guest conductor, music technology instructor, composer, and arranger.  He is the Associate Director of Music at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Atlanta. An active leader in the choral community in Georgia, Mr. Champion has held leadership positions in GMEA and the Georgia Chapter of the American Choral Directors Association. A native of Edinburg, Texas, Mr. Champion received music education and music composition degrees from Louisiana State University and the University of Georgia.