From Broadway songs to a contemporary interpretation of an ancient hymn, a dozen different works will be performed Sunday at the first Fort Lewis College concert of the season.
“It’s a great way to begin the year,” Kerry Ginger said in a telephone interview earlier this week. Associate professor of voice, Ginger is the newest full-time member of the FLC music department. In last year’s faculty concert, she performed “For Good,” a duet about friendship from the Broadway musical “Wicked.” Singing with her colleague and friend from graduate school at Arizona State University, Charissa Chiaravalloti, the two have set the stage for creative collaboration.
That spirit has continued as the FLC music department now has one of the strongest faculty rosters in years. The Sunday program includes most of the full-time faculty and an array of adjunct professors.
The Red Shoe Piano Trio, violinist M. Brent Williams, cellist Katherine Jetter and pianist Lisa Campi-Walters, will perform one movement from a Beethoven trio. Percussionist John O’Neal will perform duets with several of his colleagues, including violinist Williams, organist Easton Stuard and mezzo-soprano Drea Pressley.
In addition to two traditional Welsh songs, Pressley will sing Mozart’s Laudamus te from the Mass in C Minor. Pressley teaches a course titled “Musical Experience.” She and her husband, tenor Andreas Tischhauser, a former music faculty member, have moved to Durango from the San Francisco area. Tischhauser works in the FLC Office of Advancement and is executive director of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale. He will sing songs from two Broadway shows: “The Full Monty” and “Closer than Ever.”
Marc Reed will play a contemporary work for trumpet by Henry Vachey accompanied by pianist Linda Mack. And a spectacular piano-four-hands work should dazzle the audience for its inherent fireworks. Campi-Walters and Kathy Olinger will perform Dvorák’s Slavonic Dance Op. 46, No 1 in C Major.
The concert will feature the newest ensemble to spring from the revitalized faculty: Quadrivium. Ginger got the idea, she said, simply looking around at her talented colleagues.
“You have to create your own opportunities,” she said. “We are Quadrivium plus one – or two, or three.” Quadrivium is Latin for the four classical liberal arts, or more pertinently, the four corners region of the American Southwest.
“This is a new ensemble model,” Ginger said. “We have a core of three voices plus one or two or more depending on a concert and the repertoire.”
Ginger, Chiaravalloti and tenor Erik Gustafson have formed the core. Chiaravalloti is director of the choral program at FLC and Gustafson is an adjunct professor for voice. He is also Ginger’s husband, and the three were colleagues at ASU.
Quadrivium will make its Durango debut at Sunday’s concert singing a contemporary work by American composer Donald Skirvin. Based on an ancient liturgical hymn, “Ave Maris Stella” translates as Hail, star of the sea, dear mother of God. “It’s challenging,” Ginger said, “with very close harmonies.”
Quadrivium will also perform at noon Sept. 23 at the Durango/La Plata County Senior Center to preview a full recital scheduled for 1 p.m. Sept. 25 in Roshong Recital Hall.
Mark your calendars, we’re in for a stellar year of music at FLC.
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theater Critics Association.
If you go
What:
FLC Faculty Collage Recital.
Where:
Roshong Recital Hall (Jones Hall).
When:
3 p.m. Sunday.
How much:
Adults $15, students and children $5, free to FLC students with ID, at the door.
