The Division of Performing and Visual Arts of the Farquhar College of Arts and Sciences held the Joint Faculty Recital on Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. in the Performing and Visual Wing of the Don Taft University Center.
Adjunct Faculty Susan Chastain, Phil Bracken, Jihong Park, William Villaverde, Assistant Professor Jennifer Donelson, Associate Professor and Coordinator for PVA Bill Adams and PVA Director Michael Caldwell demonstrated their singing, flute, and piano skills.
Adams helped coordinate the event and started preparing before the school year began.
“We’ve been working on this approximately for a month,” he said, “but people bring things that they probably prepared for other events or they may be trying out things that they haven’t done before.”
Adams sang a song by Gabriel Fauré and another by Hugo Wolf.
He said that, though the pieces are meant to be presented with just piano and voice, he added a film to his performance. The Faure song was accompanied by a film of a young couple in love in Cape Cod. The Wolf song was accompanied by pictures of Adams on his trip to Vienna.
“I added the other dimension of the film playing behind it to either tell part of the story or to get the audience to think,” Adams said. “The first piece, the images literally told the story. In the second piece, the images were in contrast to the piece therefore it was going to force them to come up with their own story.”
Adams said he likes it when people discover something unexpected in his performance, as it leads to interesting discussion.
“The most exciting thing is when people come to me and say ‘I thought this was happening,’” Adams said. “They said [the Wolf piece was] an identity piece and I didn’t think of that at all.”
Rachel Snell, assistant to the dean of the College of Optometry, who also takes classes at NSU, said she enjoyed the event, especially because of her passion for music.
“I’m a pianist myself, so I was particularly interested in the pianist,” Snell said. “I also sing at the Master Chorale of South Florida, so I really enjoyed the singing because those are the two instruments I relate to the most.”
Senior biology major Sean Murphy thought the event was amazing.
“They’re all very talented, very skilled and very knowledgeable players,” Murphy said. “The fact that they have the knowledge behind them just adds more emotion to all the pieces that they played.”
Caldwell performed “Variations on the Imperial Anthem” by Joseph Haydn and another by Frederic Chopin. He said his motivation in playing is to share musical treasures that people otherwise might not experience. For example, he said few people have heard the Haydn piece because it was attributed to another composer for the past 150 years.
“My inspiration is always the fact that great music is greater than it could ever be played, so whenever you present a concert, you make one more attempt at sharing its beauty with other people,” Caldwell said.
