With its new name, the Natchez Festival of Music also has taken on new style and feeling, the director said this week as he prepared for the 2004 season opener.

The Alcorn State University Concert Choir will perform at 7 p.m. today at St. Mary Basilica, ending a smashingly successful spring tour for the choir and signaling the beginning of the festival’s five weeks of musical productions that include jazz, Broadway and opera among the varied programs.

The name change from Natchez Opera Festival to Natchez Festival of Music came after the 2003 season, a move made by the festival’s board to promote interest among music-lovers who might have shied away from the word opera, said Dr. David Blackburn, founding director, who is leading the festival into its 14th season and has been cited by the Mississippi Arts Commission for his leadership in the festival.

The festival won the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in the Community in 1998. In the spring of 2003, Blackburn was recipient of the Governor’s Award for Excellence in Opera and Musical Education.

&uot;The Alcorn choir will give us a good start this year,&uot; Blackburn said. &uot;Their spring tour took us through Mississippi, to Mobile and then to Florida.&uot;

The 35 choir members performed at the center stage of the Epcot Center to a crowd that continued to grow as the concert proceeded. &uot;Everywhere we performed, the choir received standing ovations,&uot; he said.

&uot;They’ve developed a beautiful sound this year.&uot;

One of the new musical themes of the 2004 Natchez festival is jazz, and Blackburn has cornered the Marcus Roberts Trio, one of America’s premier jazz groups, to play during the jazz sessions, May 4 through May 8.

&uot;The jazz concerts will be in the round at the convention center, with tables and chairs all around for the audience,&uot; Blackburn said, giving the trio highest marks for making music.

&uot;We heard them in Charlotte, N.C., the East Coast conference for jazz artists,&uot; Blackburn said. &uot;Anybody who knows jazz has asked how in the world we were able to get this trio.&uot;

In addition to Roberts, pianist, the trio includes Jason Marsalis, the youngest son of Ellis Marsalis and brother of Wynton, on drums; and Roland Guerin, a Baton Rouge native who has studied with renowned jazz clarinetist Alvin Batiste, on bass.

Highlight of the week prior to the jazz concerts will be &uot;Show Boat,&uot; with performances on April 30 and May 1 at Margaret Martin Performing Arts Center, 64 Homochitto St.

The 8 p.m. performances will feature all the color of costumes and set design the audience would expect for the musical based on Edna Ferber’s book by the same name.

Musician-actors in the lead roles include familiar veterans of the Natchez festival Rosemary Alvino as Julie and John Dominick III as Joe. New to the festival will be Nat Chandler in the role of Ravenal and soprano Christine Heath as Magnolia.

At 4 p.m. on May 9 at New Covenant Presbyterian Church, the festival will offer &uot;The Impresario&uot; by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, first performed on Feb. 7, 1786, a farce filled with some of Mozart’s finest operatic arias.

The major production for the next week of the festival will be &uot;An Evening with Rodgers & Hammerstein&uot; at 8 p.m. on May 15 at Margaret Martin Performing Arts Center. The program will feature the best of the duo’s famous and popular music from their Broadway productions, such as &uot;Oklahoma,&uot; &uot;Carousel,&uot; &uot;South Pacific,&uot; &uot;The King and I&uot; and &uot;The Sound of Music.&uot;

The final performance will be &uot;Turandot&uot; by Giacomo Puccini, the great composer’s last opera and perhaps his best, Blackburn said.

&uot;Turandot is the biggest thing we’ve done yet,&uot; Blackburn said. &uot;It requires a massive chorus. We’ll have four weeks of rehearsal, with the stars coming in for the last two weeks of rehearsal.&uot;

The cast includes newcomer Brenda Frye in the role of Turandot. &uot;She is from Olive Branch, Mississippi,&uot; Blackburn said. &uot;She is wonderful.&uot;

Many other concerts and recitals are woven into the five weeks of musical performance, including &uot;Night of Stars&uot; at 8 p.m. Friday at New Covenant Presbyterian Church and &uot;Command Performance&uot; at 8 p.m. on May 14 at St. Mary Basilica.

Plantation recitals, intimate performances inside some of Natchez’s palatial mansions, will be held at Glenburnie, Elms Court, Magnolia Hall and Auburn during the festival.

In addition, the festival once again will send performers into area churches and to free lunch-hour concerts at Memorial Park in downtown Natchez.

Further, the festival music education program once again will go into schools throughout the area to perform and to teach children about music. Many thousands of children attend the programs, performed by young opera stars throughout the festival season.