Student Recital Strikes All the Right Notes

The Fresno City College music department held its spring student recital in the Old Administration Building Auditorium on April 4.

The concert, which featured 10 performances from numerous student musicians, featured songs that spawned from Mozart and opera.

Many of the performers were accompanied by pianist Aarne Kela.

“I think it’s surprising the level of talent we have here,” said Kela.

“I’m kind of an in-between person that works with them outside of their classes, but I try to just backup and support what the instructors do with them and reinforce their work. It’s a blast.”

One of the performances was a duet given by Bernadette LaMontagne-Schenk and Alex Hollingsworth. Their song, “Crudel! Perchè Finora” was taken from the opera, “Le Nozze Di Figaro” (The Marriage of Figaro).

This song was chosen by their voice teacher, Rebecca Sarkisian.

LaMontagne-Schenk and Hollingsworth discussed their approach to remain in-character during their musical performance.

“This song is about my character not liking his character,” said LaMontagne-Schenk. “I had to practice being repulsed by him.”

“The piece we performed was a baritone and soprano duet,” said Hollingsworth. “ I happen to be a baritone and she happens to be a soprano.”

The students put plenty of effort in their respective performances. Oboist Glen Sabal and guitarist Carlos Vasquez performed two movements from “7 Canciones Populares Espana”  together.

Vasquez, who is simultaneously a student and music fundamentals instructor at FCC, spoke of the rigor of rehearsing the piece of music with Sabal.

“We started working on this program and the piece that me and Glenn performed about a month prior to tonight,” said Vasquez. “We had to initiate our work on our own without being told by our professors and instructors.”