Owning the Spotlight

Senior music-performance majors present senior recitals

by MaryAlice Bitts-Jackson

When Ann Fogler ’15 captures the stage in Rubendall Recital Hall this week, she’ll dive headfirst into a landmark moment in every performance major’s life.

Held in the spring semester of a music major’s final year at Dickinson, the senior recital is just one of many music-performance opportunities at Dickinson, including ensemble and musical-theatre work, a junior-year recital and student-run ensembles and clubs. But for performance majors, it is certainly the most momentous. The musical equivalent of a senior thesis, major research presentation or senior exhibition, the senior recital not only showcases student talent (along with that of Dickinson’s gifted accompanist and piano instructor, Eun Ae Baik-Kim) but also represents all a student musician has learned and accomplished thus far.

Fogler kicks off the 2015 senior-recital season with her performance of a unique student-faculty-student collaboration—a setting by student composer Nick Cardelia '15 of a poem published by Associate Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence Adrienne Su. “Nick and I decided to collaborate last fall, and Professor Su offered us several poems from her new book—including the poem we used,” says Fogler of Su’s work, “On Writing,” which the soprano describes as unique and lyrical. “We set to work right away.”

Throughout the year, as Cardelia wrote and revised the piece, he sent drafts to Fogler. The two worked closely together to ensure that the vocal line was a good fit for Fogler’s voice, and vice versa, resulting in a finished work that was finely crafted for Fogler’s big night.

Fogler, who previewed “On Writing” during Su’s April 2 reading at Whistlestop Bookshop, is eager to present the official premiere. “As a young musician, there are still technical aspects that I will need to be highly aware of in my recital, in terms of vocal technique. But I feel that I have accomplished a lot this year in terms of the development of my vocal color, and placement, and I’ve discovered my true voice,” she says.

Upcoming senior recitals

• Ann Fogler ’15, soprano (April 11, 7 p.m.), collaborates with Baik-Kim (piano) on works by Donizetti, Saint Saëns and Lori Laitman, as well as on Cordelia’s setting of Su’s text. She will be joined by Sara Tillett ’17 (soprano) on duets from Mozart's Così fan tutte.
• Isabel Burlingame ’15, violin (April 25, 7 p.m.), who dazzled in the title role in last fall’s production of Fiddler on the Roof, will be accompanied by Baik-Kim as she performs Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 1, Debussy's Violin Sonata, Prokofiev's Five Melodies for Violin and Piano and Brahms's Scherzo for Violin and Piano.
• Holly Kelly ’15, soprano (April 26, 4 p.m.) will be accompanied by Baik-Kim and joined by Brian Rotz on organ. Major works include Handel's dramatic secular cantata "Allor ch'io dissi addio," Poulenc's "Airs Chantes," Libby Larsen's "Margaret Songs: Three Songs from Willa Cather," "Goodnight Moon" by Eric Whitacre and selections of Franz Schubert's lieder.

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Published April 8, 2015