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…)

The Kentucky Wesleyan College Music Department will present a showcase of music faculty, students and community members with music from “The Great American Songbook” on March 14 at 7 p.m.…

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The Kentucky Wesleyan Band, under the direction of Associate Professor of Music Dr. Patrick Stuckemeyer, will present “Bright Lights, Big City,” celebrating the sights and sounds of urban living, on…

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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 will host guest artist Steven Mead, one of the world’s most successful professional euphonium soloists in the world, with pianist Dr. Diane Earle, KWC Professor Emerita of…

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