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Kentucky Wesleyan Music Department to host baritone Dr. Michael Preacely and pianist Dr. Diane Earle

The Kentucky Wesleyan Music Department will host a concert with baritone Dr. Michael Preacely and pianist Dr. Diane Earle on March 17 at 7 p.m. in Tapscott Chapel in the Barnard-Jones Administration Building. The event is free, and the public is invited to attend. The program, made possible by the Helen Hart Fund, will include opera, musical theatre, art song and spirituals.

Dr. Preacely is a rising star on the operatic stage and is also known for a versatile singing ability and style that allows him to cross between genres from classical repertoire to pop, contemporary and Broadway. He has received critical acclaim for many of his performances, including Phantom in “Phantom of the Opera,” Scarpia in “Tosca,” Ford in “Falstaff,” Marcello in “La Boheme,” the High Priest in “Samson and Delilah” and Porgy and Jake in “Porgy and Bess.”

He has performed with many major and regional opera houses and orchestras in the United States and abroad. Recently, Dr. Preacely completed a European tour of “Porgy and Bess” where he received great reviews for his performance of both Porgy and Jake. He also toured Russia in a concert series with New York-based Opera Noire, debuted with Opera Memphis in the role of Marullo with a Rigoletto Cover and Opéra de Montréal in the role of Jake. Dr. Preacely made his debut with the Butler University Symphony Orchestra opposite world-famous soprano Angela Brown in a beloved performance of the “Porgy and Bess Suite.” Michael has performed with Cincinnati Opera, Opera Company Philadelphia, Opera Memphis, Kentucky Opera, Cleveland Opera, Lyric Opera Cleveland and Bohème Opera of New Jersey. (more…)

Kentucky Wesleyan Singers to perform on campus with famed Bluegrass band

The Kentucky Wesleyan Singers will host and perform with the Chuck Nation Band, called “the South’s best Bluegrass band,” on Feb. 20 and 21 at 7 p.m. in the Jack T. Wells ’77 Activity Center at 3300 Frederica St.

The band will begin the concert with their own set of original and traditional Bluegrass tunes and the Kentucky Wesleyan Singers will then join the band for the performance of “Come Away to the Skies: A High, Lonesome Mass” with Visiting Assistant Professor Patrick Ritsch conducting. He is director of Choral Activities and Music Education.

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Written by Tim Sharp and Wes Ramsay, “Come Away to the Skies” is an extraordinary piece of sacred music transcending time, geography and genre. This setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Mass combines American frontier folk hymns from the “Sacred Harp” and “Southern Harmony” in a bluegrass idiom. The folk hymns used come primarily from the Scots-Irish theological and musical traditions found uniquely in the American South and published in these hymn collections. Such hymn collections flourished throughout the American South in the mid-nineteenth century and are repositories of some of the greatest hymns of that era. (more…)

Kentucky Wesleyan College to host “It Goes with You: An Evening on Kilimanjaro” with Brandon Cox ’10

The Keith and Vickie Sharber Communication Arts Program at Kentucky Wesleyan College will host a free public lecture, “It Goes with You: An Evening on Kilimanjaro,” Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025, at 6:30 p.m. in the Panther Room at the Jack T. Wells ’77 Activity Center (3300 Frederica Street).

Local adventurer Brandon Cox ‘10 will share photographs and stories from his October expedition to Tanzania to raise awareness and funds for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. The lecture will combine mountaineering, psychology, personal development, public relations and digital marketing.

Cox, a 2010 Kentucky Wesleyan College graduate, marketing and communications professional and adjunct professor of communication arts, will discuss his planning, training and preparation to climb Africa’s highest peak. The talk will also detail the public relations and marketing strategies he employed to promote the project and ask for donations to St. Jude.

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