Keene State’s voice faculty members were next to be featured in the Music Department’s Faculty and Guest Recital Series last week, with a performance in the Redfern Arts Center’s Alumni Recital Hall on Sunday, Oct. 18. The performance featured Applied Voice Faculty Dr. Evangelia Leontis, Dr. Brittney Redler and Professor Nicholas Tocci. Additional performers during the recital included Professor of Clarinet, Dr. Alexander Kollias and Staff Collaborative Pianist, Vladimir Odinokikh.
The recital mainly featured classical vocal music, with each vocal performer showcasing some solo repertoire along with several duets and a trio that allowed the faculty members to sing together.
Leontis said the performers did most of the preparation for the recital on their own, although there were two group rehearsals in the weeks leading up to the performance and a dress rehearsal earlier in the weekend. She added that she had personally been working on her music for “a couple months” to prepare for the recital.
Leontis described the opportunity to collaborate with her fellow voice faculty members for the recital as “a lot of fun.”
“For the most part, we don’t see each other all that often because we’re just in our own place teaching,” said Leontis. “We’re mostly interacting with the students, so it’s actually really fun to get to work together on something.”
She added that she had performed with Tocci in the past, but this was her first time performing alongside Redler and Kollias, which was a new experience for her that she enjoyed.
Additionally, Leontis said the performers were all most excited for the ensemble pieces that would allow them to perform together onstage.
“The most fun part about singing is when you get to sing with other people,” she said. “Personally, that’s what I’m most looking forward to, is the collaborative nature of the ensemble pieces. We also love working with [Odinokikh], our pianist, because he is really excellent, so it’s always fun to have a chance to work with him, and I personally love performing with other instruments, so I was really happy to get to include the trio with [Kollias], the clarinetist.”
As for KSC voice students, Leontis said she was excited for the recital to be an opportunity to show them a different side of herself as a performer. “They mostly know me as a teacher, so it’s really an exciting opportunity and kind of fun to show them this other side of what we do,” she said. “I hope they will enjoy it.”
On top of that, Leontis said she hoped to both expose her students to music they had never heard before and show them an example of what a voice recital looks like before they have to perform their own recitals later in their college career.
“Most of it will be music that they have not heard, at least not in person. We don’t really have a ton of opera, especially on campus, so since I’m teaching opera workshop this semester, I’m excited to be performing some opera so that those students can be hearing some of that music in person,” Leontis said. “The music majors eventually have to give their own recitals, so we hope to provide them with an example of what that looks like.”
Junior and music education major Ellis White said they attended the event because Leontis is their voice professor and they were excited to see all of the voice faculty members perform in a recital.
“We have been waiting for one of these since last semester. We were supposed to have one last year, and it just didn’t happen, so we were so excited that it was going on,” said White. “We talk about it in our classes, about how they were all performing, and we were so excited to go see them. They’re amazing musicians at such a high level, and they’re just so phenomenal, so getting to watch them be experts on stage in a different context than a lesson is so incredible.”
As a music major, White is a student who will have to perform their own recital in the future. White said the Voice Faculty Recital made them excited for their own performance, especially as Leontis sang a piece that they also perform.
“Seeing her interpretation of that piece was really helpful to make my own interpretation for when I’m doing my recitals and my performances,” White said. “Just seeing their stage deportment and their expertise is really incredible and helps shape what I want to do down the line and in my own performance.”
Justin Dearborn can be contacted at
jdearborn@kscequinox.com
