On Wednesday, Feb. 25 music students performed for “Music Majors in Recital.”
A variety of performances were brought to the stage featuring instrumentalists and vocalists. Music students auditioned to perform for “Music Majors in Recital” during their jury performances in the Fall 2021 semester.
Mezzo-soprano Megan Donnelly performed her piece “Song of Black Max (As Told by the de Kooning Boys)” by William Bolcom.
“I love cabaret-style singing,” said Donnelly. “If you don’t know what that is, think 1920s jazz club. Bringing the character of my piece to life is what I like most about it. For a moment, I can put myself back in time on another place of existence.”
Donnelly felt her performance of the piece went well, even if it wasn’t perfect.
“As musicians, I feel Ike we are too hard on ourselves sometimes,” Donnelly said. “Of course there were some things that I wasn’t pleased with in regard to my performance. There are things I’ve done perfectly a thousand times over in the practice room that I didn’t nail on stage. Overall, I did well. I portrayed the message of the song, and I provided a performance that many people enjoyed. I think that is the real measure of success in performance; If you had fun with the audience, if you created an enjoyable environment, that’s the magic of live music.”
This was Donnelly’s first solo performance.
“This experience gave me the opportunity to put my sound out there as a representative for the SVSU school of music,” Donnelly said. “I was able to face my performance anxiety head on with no one to lean on but myself. This helped me to claim back some musical independence that had been left behind with the start of the COVID pandemic.”
Donnelly enjoyed the support she received.
“What I loved most about the recital was the support form the fellow performers and music majors that attended the performance.,” Donnelly said. “It helped me to see the family I gained from being a music education major here at SVSU.”
Tenor vocalist Pierce Tyndall performed the piece “Le Bestiaire” by Francis Poulenc.
“This piece was a collection of smaller works organized into a ‘song cycle,’” Tyndall said. “The variety of the smaller pieces created contrast. This challenge of having to portray many different characters within the same performance was a lot of fun to master.”
Tyndall also felt the performance went well.
“My performance was perfect,” Tyndall said. “It felt right to me, and I received multiple praises after the concert. I’ve been working on the piece for a long time, so it was settled in my bones.”
Tyndall wanted the audience to not take his performance seriously.
“I wanted the audience to have fun while experiencing it,” Tyndall said. “This collection is not to be taken seriously. The comedic underpinning is what makes this piece work. It was my goal to make the audience laugh at the different characters portrayed through the music.”
This was the first French piece Tyndall learned.
“It was very difficult at first,” Tyndall said. “Through working with my teacher, Kevin Simons, I was able to better understand how to sing in the French language.”
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