West Virginia University Composer-in-Residence John Beall will present a recital of his vocal compositions, songs, duets and arias, covering his entire career as a composer, Thursday, Oct. 27, at 8:15 pm. in the Bloch Learning and Performance Hall (200A) of the Creative Arts Center. The concert is free and open to the public.

Titled “The Vocal Music of John Beall,” the concert will feature WVU faculty members Hope Koehler, soprano, William Koehler, bass-baritone, Nicholas Perna, tenor, Mandy Spivak, soprano, Robert Thieme, piano, and Mikylah McTeer, violin.

The works on the program range from those Beall composed during his student days as an undergraduate at Baylor University, to his opera of 1997, “Ethan Frome,” to recent songs such as the “New Testament Songs,” which were completed in 2003.

The excerpts from “Ethan Frome” will include Ethan’s aria, “He’ll Not Go for Mattie,” from Act One, Scene 1, and the love duet between Ethan and Mattie in Act Two, Scene 1, sung by Hope and William Koehler. Spivak will open the program with Beall’s “Songs from the Book of Pictures,” followed by Perna singing the “Hammarskj�ld Songs.” Hope Koehler will close the program with the “New Testament Songs,” which use texts from St. Paul and St. John.

Beall was appointed associate professor of music in 1978 and has taught composition and orchestration since that time.

He holds degrees from Baylor University and a doctorate from the Eastman School of Music, where he won the Louis Lane Prize and the Howard Hanson Prize, two of Eastman’s highest composition honors.

Beall’s opera, “Ethan Frome,” uses a libretto, based on Edith Wharton’s long story of the same name, by WVU Theatre Professor Emeritus Jack Held. The opera was commissioned for the centennial of the WVU School of Music in 1997 and premiered in November 1997, with a television production in 1998.

For more information about the concert, contact the College of Creative Arts at (304) 293-4359.

-WVU-

CONTACT: Charlene Lattea, WVU College of Creative Arts
304-293-4841, Ext. 3108; (304) 826-0657 (cell), Charlene.lattea@mail.wvu.edu

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