An Eastern professor made his return debut Sunday in Doudna Fine Arts Center with some of his own compositions.

Richard Robert Rossi, director of Orchestral and Choral Activities, returned to the Dvorak Concert Hall by premiering two new compositions after a semester long sabbatical in Florida

“People wonder what I did on sabbatical, after all, I was only in Florida,” Rossi said. “I worked on these pieces.”

The pieces “As the Father Has Loved Me” and “A Red, Red Rose” made their world premieres at the show and were both preformed by the Eastern Concert Choir.

When the group sang “As the Father Has Loved Me” they were accompanied by Sharilyn Spicknall, a new faculty member who will make her directorial debut as Concertmaster of the Eastern Symphony Orchestra at the Fright Night Concert next Sunday.

As a part of the performance of “As the Father Has Loved Me” the audience was encouraged to sing along when cued in by Rossi, and were given the words in their program.

Lisa Perfors, a sophomore music major with an education certification and audience member, said the performance was engaging.

“It was cool that [Rossi] involved the audience and gave them a chance to sing,” Perfors said. “I wish they would do more of that.”

The parts by a soprano singer and Spicknall’s violin part in “A Red, Red Rose” are symbolic of two separated lovers who only cross paths a few times, but continue to share a bond. It was written for his parents for their 50th wedding anniversary, Rossi said.

Perfors said she particularly enjoyed this piece because of the use of string instruments.

“The whole concert had quite of bit of string involvement, it’s not something you see a lot of because there are not many pieces written for string and voice, and it was nice to see so much of it.”

Other pieces that included strings were two pieces preformed by the Camerata Singers. Ka-Wai Yu, an instructor of the Cello, who played the cello and two flute players, accompanied them.

The concert also featured the Eastern Mixed Choir, who sang a variety of ethnic pieces, including a Negro spiritual, Irish folk songs and Canadian Folk songs.

Janet McCumber, conductor of University Mixed Choir, said she picked “Soon-Ah Will Be Done” because no one in the choir had sung it before.

“I thought it was so important to expose the students as well of the audience of this beautiful type of music,” McCumber said.

For more information about upcoming concerts visit www.eiu.edu/music.

Amy Wywialowski can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].