Four seniors will present their final solo recitals in Jussi Björling Recital Hall on the Gustavus Adolphus College campus this Saturday, April 16. The four seniors, Samuel Grace, piano and voice, Jenna Walker, mezzo soprano, Brita Gilyard, mezzo soprano and Abbie Johnson, flute, will fill the day with performances at 1:30, 3;30 and 7:30 p.m. All three recitals are free and open to the public.
The afternoon opens in Jussi Björling Recital Hall with senior music major Samuel Grace at 1:30 p.m. Grace, a 2007 graduate of Waverly-Shell Rock Senior High School in Waverly, Iowa, will open his recital with vocal selections accompanied by pianist Bonnie Jorgensen. The first work is a Benjamin Britten arrangement of the Salley Gardens Irish Tune, followed by Poulenc’s Mazurka and Vier ernste Gesänge by Johannes Brahms. He then moves to the piano for Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Major, and Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 2 in D Minor. Grace continues as accompanist to baritone Christopher Hall and soprano Rebecca McConnaughey before concluding the recital with Sonata No. 8 in G Major for Violin and Piano by Ludwig van Beethoven, assisted by violinist Mark Wamma.
At 3:30 p.m., Björling Recital Hall re-opens for a joint voice recital by mezzo sopranos Brita Gilyard and Jenna Walker. Gilyard is a nursing major from Medina, Minnesota and Walker a communications studies major from Hastings, Minnesota. Their recital program will be a number of solos and duets, as well as trios with mezzo soprano Becca Hohag, and includes works by Fauré, von Gluck, Schubert, Kilenyi and Zaninelli. The program concludes with selections from Broadway musicals by Garner & Burke, Warren & Gordon and Irving Berlin and an arrangement by Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland of Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again. They will be accompanied by pianists Samuel Grace and Yanna Georgas.
Flutist Abbie Johnson will begin the final recital of the day at 7:30 p.m. in Björling Recital Hall accompanied by pianist Beth Winterfeldt. She is a music major from Oronoco, Minnesota and a graduate of Pine Island High School. Her program includes works as varied as Mozart’s Flute Concerto in G Major to Eldwin Burton’s Sonatina for Flute and Piano to Franz Doppler’s Rigoletto Fantasie for two flutes and piano (assisted by Antonio Herbert, flute.) Abbie will also perform Katherine Hoover’s Three Sketches for Piccolo and Piano and two works for alto flute by Franz Schubert and Caeser Giovannini.
Saturday’s recital in Jussi Björling Recital Hall are free and open to the public. A reception for the musicians will follow in the recital hall lobby.