The Fort Lewis College Performing Arts Department will unveil the 2024 Faculty Showcase at 3 p.m. Sunday in Roshong Recital Hall. It’s a significant event as the recital brings forth veteran and new faculty members in a once-in-a-year program. The Showcase is a chance for area music lovers to see who is who, musically speaking, up on the ivory mesa. Tickets are $15, and the proceeds go toward music scholarships.
The roster has changed considerably since last spring. Three key faculty members have moved on to new positions: Michael McKelvey, head of musical theater, and two voice faculty members, Wes Dunnagan and Branden Barker. McKelvey and Dunnagan joined music departments at Carnegie Mellon and St. Olaf’s, respectively. Barker rejoined his family business in Philadelphia and has resumed his performance career. The Dunnagan-Barker positions have been merged and newcomer Hannah Duff teaches voice and is the new FLC director of Choirs.
Duff will open the showcase with pianist Holly Quist to perform “Three Browning Songs, Op. 44,” by American composer Amy Beach. The two musicians found a mutual admiration society for Beach’s music as Quist wrote her doctoral dissertation on Beach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Duff is a recent master’s graduate of the Eastman School of Music where she taught music theory and was assistant conductor for the Eastman Opera Theater. Quist formally joined the FLC faculty last year when her predecessor, Lisa Campi Walters, resigned and moved to Florida with her family.
The other new faculty member to appear in Sunday’s showcase is Teri Hansen. She replaces McKelvey as head of the musical theater major.
All of these positions fall under the umbrella of the FLC Performing Arts Department, a fairly new constellation of majors that combines the former music and drama departments. Felicia Lansbury Meyer succeeded John O’Neal this year as chair.
Only a month ago, Meyer managed to hire McKelvey’s replacement. At the beginning of September, she joyously announced that Tina Hansen would be filling the musical theater position. Most recently, Hansen has been a visiting assistant professor of Theatre-Musical Theatre at Oakland University. She holds a master’s degree in opera performance/production from Florida State University and a bachelor’s in vocal performance from Central Michigan University. Her Michigan alma mater gave her an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts in 2014. Now at FLC, Hansen will teach core curriculum, voice lessons and will direct “Pippin,” the FLC spring musical.
All that sounds purely academic, and Hansen brings a mountain of stage experience. She’s performed on Broadway and London’s West End, as well as in films and television. Most recently, she starred as Elsa in the national tour of “The Sound of Music.”
Because of professional commitments, Hansen arrived late on campus – Sept. 9. She plunged immediately into the rhythm of the semester, then had a family emergency, which put in doubt her appearance in the showcase. But that has passed, and Hansen will sing Stephen Sondheim’s “Being Alive,” with Quist as collaborative pianist. It’s one of Sondheim’s most powerful songs and questions the American definition of happiness.
Another unusual hallmark of the showcase will be Justin Hubbard’s rendition of “Billie,” a tribute to the American jazz singer by Jacob TV. Hubbard will perform the work on alto saxophone accompanied with electronic tape in which you will hear Holiday’s voice recycled and remixed.
In addition, you will hear cellist Katherine Jetter, violinist Richard Silvers, percussionist John O’Neal, trumpeter Joe Nibley, pianist Jack Maynes, and the inimitable saxophonist Jeff Solon. The faculty jazz quartet, featuring Solon, will close the showcase with three works. The musicians will close, appropriately, with the Harry James and Kitty Kallen tune: “It’s Been a Long, Long time.”
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
