The Fort Lewis College Honors Recital, endowed by the late Walter Dear, is back. At 3 p.m. Sunday in Roshong Recital Hall, the Music Department will showcase student performers in a special, free recital. Seven young musicians will perform works by Gaetano Donizetti, Henryk Wienaiwski, a group of 20th-century composers and one new work written and performed by Sean Kinard: “(E)motion for horn and fixed media.”
If you go
WHAT: Fort Lewis College Walter Dear Student Honors Recital
WHEN: 3 p.m. Sunday
WHERE: Roshong Recital Hall (Jones Hall), FLC, 1000 Rim Drive
ADMISSION: Free
Dear (1932-2023) lived a long, exuberant life and endowed two annual events to share his love of music with our community: The FLC Honors Recital and a pops concert every summer in the Music in the Mountains Festival. In 2018, he decided to enhance The Jan Roshong/Rochelle Mann Music Education Scholarship by creating an endowed fund. Revenues from his investment support a number of annual scholarships for students like the ones performing in Sunday’s recital.
A native of New Jersey, Dear worked as a journalist and publisher of a Kentucky newspaper for more than 40 years. In 2000, he and his late wife, Martha, moved to Durango. Among his many interests and activities, Dear wrote a column for The Durango Herald, published a book, “Paradise with an Edge,” and joyously sat down at any piano whenever he could. Always a student with a beginner’s attitude, he continued piano lessons with FLC’s Katherine Olinger, played regularly at the Durango-La Plata Senior Center and often at local churches.
In one of life’s sweet ironies, Olinger continues to participate with the honors students. She will accompany several on the 2026 program.
The honors selection process rises out of regular music juries conducted at the end of each semester. The jury usually consists of five to seven faculty members. And since the honors recital began in 2018, FLC music professors have selected a limited number of students to represent the department in this singular program.
Michael Miles will open the recital playing two movements from John C. Worley’s Sonata for Tenor Saxophone with Olinger on piano. Greg Chu, guitarist, will follow with Paul de Senneville’s “Mariage d’Amour.” Christian Salt, who performed in last year’s honors program on marimba, will play Jan Freicher’s “Soaring in the Sky” on vibraphone. Chu’s senior percussion recital is set for March 27, where one might hope to hear Freicher’s piece again.
Derek Smith, one of two vocal music students on the program, will sing Stefano Donaudy’s “O Del Mio Amato Ben,” followed by violinist Adam Brown performing the second movement from Wieniawski’s Concerto No. 2 in D minor. French hornist Kinard will play his own work, and as with all new music, a second chance to listen again may be in the offing at Kinard’s senior recital March 12.
To close the recital, soprano Madi Brusca will sing Donizetti’s “Quel guardo, il cavaliere,” from the opera “Don Pasquale.”
Madison Mae Brusca, 22, may be the outlier on the FLC Honors roster. Technically, she is an art education major expecting to graduate next fall. Her minor in music qualifies her for the recital, and she has a story to tell.
“From elementary school on, music has always been part of my life,” she said. “I started private voice lessons when I was 15. When I came to FLC, I studied voice first with Wesley Dunnagan, then Hannah Duff and now Dr. Eun Ah Roh. But I wasn’t sure about my major until the end of my freshman year. Dr. Roh has raised the bar for me as a musician significantly.”
A graduate of Columbine High School, the Colorado native became fascinated with the sciences, visual art and music before enrolling in FLC. By the end of freshman year, she still was undecided about her direction.
“I was sort of stuck between biology and art,” Brusca said. “Music, too, had always been part of my life. So, at the end of my freshman year, I decided to revisit my teachers at Columbine – biology, art, music and theater arts. When I asked for advice about a major, I got different answers.”
One interview stood out, she said, which immediately helped her choose a major.
“My art teacher simply asked me: What do you want to ‘grade’ when you leave college?’ That was my ah-ha moment. I knew I wanted to focus on the arts,” she said.
Along the way, Brusca has discovered an interest in technology. Wherever she lands, that will serve her well. Currently, she’s Lead AV technician for the Music Department as well the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Durango.
“But right now I’m applying for my student teaching assignment next fall,” she said. “Then graduation.”
Judith Reynolds is an arts journalist and member of the American Theatre Critics Association.
