Associate Professor of Piano, Thomas Rosenkranz will serve on the jury for the Shanghai International Open Piano Competition from October 1st-4th. Professor Rosenkranz is currently on a faculty improvement leave living in Chengdu, China.
Professor Papanikolaou to present pre-performance lectures at Toledo Opera’s production of Madama Butterfly
Eftychia Papanikolaou, Associate Professor of Musicology, has been invited to present two pre-performance lectures at Toledo Opera’s production of Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Friday, October 2 at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, October 4 at 1 p.m.
The allure of the East had captivated opera audiences for the better part of the nineteenth century—tales of the Other constructed through European lens offered boundless opportunities for visual splendor and aural opulence. Written at the dawn of the new century, Madama Butterfly (1904) constitutes Giacomo Puccini’s answer to japonisme, the overwhelming fascination with everything Japanese that thrilled Europeans and Americans alike after 1860.
The opera transports us to the exotic world of nineteenth-century Japan and the ill-fated love between a 15-year-old geisha and an American naval officer. The innocent but passionate Cio-Cio-San (Butterfly) marries the conceited Lieutenant Pinkerton, only to be abandoned when he returns to the US. The stereotypical portrayal of the two protagonists gives us a glimpse into the uneasy historical context that surrounded the encounter between East and West. Puccini’s score, peppered with traditional Japanese music he studied while composing the opera, leaves no doubt about the irresistible power of the music to move, surprise and seduce us. It invites us to leave behind our present-day post-colonial anxieties and rather indulge in the emotional cornucopia and dramatic finesse of one of the composer’s finest creations.
Toledo Opera’s Madama Butterfly is a production of the so-called “Brescia version” of May 1904, the revision that Puccini fashioned three months after the disastrous premiere at La Scala. The opera would undergo several more revisions, until its standard version was established in the Paris production of 1906.
Eftychia Papanikolaou, Ph.D.
Bowling Green State University
For more information please visit ToledoOpera.org.
Jeff Halsey featured in the Detroit Jazz Festival
Jeff Halsey recently concluded a series of performances at the Detroit Jazz Festival over the Labor Day weekend. He performed as the bassist with the festival’s Artist in Recidence, Pat Metheny, and was a featured performer with the festival’s artistic director, Chris Collins in “Jazz from the Shamrock Shore.” Additionally, Halsey was featured in the festival’s final concert involving both big band and string orchestra. The Detroit Jazz Festival is the world’s largest jazz festival and is free to the public.
National Scholarship awarded to Music Education student, Alora Allen
The National Youth of the Year scholarship program through the Boys & Girls Club of America recognizes Boys & Girls Club leaders with the opportunities to travel, speak, and represent the organization. Scholarship money is awarded at every level, and the National Youth of the Year receives a $100,000 college scholarship.
In April, Alora Allen, a Music Education student at BGSU, was selected as the 2015 Michigan Youth of the Year and traveled to Chicago to participate in the regional program. In July, she was selected as the 2015 Midwest Regional Youth of the Year and is now the Boys & Girls Club youth representative for her region. So far, she has earned $48,000 in scholarships for her tuition at Bowling Green State University.
This September she has the opportunity to participate in the National Youth of the year program in Washington DC. From September 25-30th she will be meeting with Congressional leaders, high profile corporate executives and celebrities, and will have the once in a lifetime opportunity to meet with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office.
Congratulations Alora Allen for your incredible achievement, and best wishes from us at the College of Musical Arts!
BGSU Voice Alumna to make Metropolitan Opera debut
BGSU alumna, soprano Tammie Michelle Bradley, currently resides in Houston, Texas. She was recently selected by Maestro James Levine to become a part of the prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera. The Lindemann Young Artist Development Program was created in 1980 by Maestro Levine to identify and develop extraordinarily talented young singers in the field of opera. The program has trained a new generation of renowned American and International opera singers, as well as coaches and pianists, who perform at the highest standards in productions not only at the Met, but in opera houses around the world.
Ms. Bradley has won prizes in several prestigious vocal competitions, including the first prize in the Marilyn Horne Song Competition at The Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California held last July 2014. She has also won prizes in the Gerda Lissner Vocal Competition in New York City, and the Lois Alba Vocal Competition in Houston, Texas. She is currently performing a recital tour of the U.S. as winner of the Marilyn Horne Song Competition. The tour has taken her to cities in California, Texas, and New York.
Ms. Bradley begins her contract with the Metropolitan Opera on September 8, 2015. Ms. Bradley received her master of music degree in vocal performance from BGSU in 2009 and studied voice with soprano Myra Merritt.
Also from the studio of Myra Merritt, Elizabeth Hood, who graduated from BGSU in May 2015 has recently completed an operatic training program. Elizabeth had the chance to sing the demanding role of The Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Lyric Opera Studio Weimar this past summer. The program is an intensive opera training program designed for emerging young professional singers and focuses on the German theatre system. The program consisted of 39 students representing 18 different countries. The students were given master classes and the opportunity to learn a role and sing it with orchestra in Weimar.
Faculty Publications Highlighted
The editors at Ashgate Publishing have named Dr. Mary Natvig’s 2002 book, Teaching Music History, as the most influential book they had published in the field.
Dr. Emily Freeman Brown, Director of Orchestral Activities, Conducting & Ensembles has recently authored “A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor” published by Rowman & Littlefield.
from the Rowman & Littlefield description
“Titles in Dictionaries for the Modern Musician: A Scarecrow Press Music Series offer both the novice and the advanced artist key information designed to convey the field of study and performance for a major instrument or instrument class, as well as the workings of musicians in areas from conducting to composing. Unlike other encyclopedic works, contributions to this series focus primarily on the knowledge required by the contemporary musical student or performer. Each dictionary covers topics from instrument parts to playing technique, major works to key figures. A must-have for any musician’s personal library! Filling a vital need in the rapidly changing and complex field of conducting, A Dictionary for the Modern Conductor is a concise one-volume reference tool that brings together for the first time information covering a broad array of topics essential for today’s conductor to know.”