Covenant College is launching its fifth “Covenant Arts” season in September with a four-concert series featuring the Boston Brass, the Alison Brown Quartet, piano soloist Teresa Walters, and the Manhattan Piano Trio.

“In this year’s series, we will blend the master works of European heritage with music by Americans,” said Dr. Jeanell Brown, chair of Covenant’s Music Department and director of the Covenant Arts concert series. “The sounds of jazz, bluegrass, country, rock, and folk have had a profound influence on American composers like Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein, and Barber.”

Brown started the Covenant Arts series five years ago as a way to reach out to the local arts community and to provide students with access to high-caliber musicians.

“We’re able to bring in a higher level of artist than other colleges or symphonies in town,” said Brown, “so it really becomes a way of doing outreach and investing in the Chattanooga arts community.” In previous years, nationally-known artists such as the Eroica Trio, the America Chamber Players, and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields have participated in Covenant Arts, offering seminars and master’s classes to students in addition to their concerts.

Of Covenant College’s 1,000 undergraduate students, some 90 are music majors, and more than 200 participate in the school’s music program or in the musical theater program.

One of Brown’s favorite memories of past Covenant Arts concerts centers on worship. Broadway veteran and outspoken Christian George Merritt concluded his concert by having the audience sing “It is Well with My Soul” as he quietly left the stage. “It was very moving to have a concert of worship,” said Brown. “He turned the audience into a choir.”

For more information, visit www.covenant.edu/covenantarts.