Crimson and Gold Connection; Joe Firman

Joe, thanks for joining us this week on the Crimson Ant Gold Connection. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. We call it this spring session. It still kind of feels like winter. We still have a couple more months of winter. Either way, things are going to be red hot coming up here in February at the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts. We're super excited about all the things we've got going on coming up in February, which starts with the opera. A lot of people don't realize that in the music department, they have the pit state opera theater, or the PSU opera theater. And the opera this year is done by Mozart, and it is going to be pronounced terribly by me, but Cossi Fantouti. And it's a fun story about, well, according to this Wikipedia page, all women do it, or the school for lovers. This first, this Kuzi Vantouti, or however you pronounce that was first performed, believe it or not, in 1790 in Austria. Austria, sorry. So you're not the only one who screws up these pronunciations. So this year, we're having some real fun, because not only are we doing the opera, but the pit orchestra is going to be the

full orchestra. So in previous years, you would have the opera, but it would be music piped in. Well, it would be a smaller ensemble in the pit. But this year, it is going to be the Southeast Kansas Symphony at Pittsburgh State University doing the music in the pit for the music department opera singers who will be on stage. So it says a full-fledged opera, a full-fledged symphony orchestra coming together for the first time as a partnership. They've done this before in years gone by, but this will be the first time that I can remember since I've been here. So there's always something new even after five years of performances and advance at the Bignol Family Center for the Arts. This is something new for you and for Rell Mungia. I think Rull has done it before, but not here, but not here, not in this building, right? Definitely. And of course, Rull has been involved in so many incredible things on stage. He's been in the pit before, but it's the first time that the symphony and the opera have come together like this in the Bignol Center. So it's well worth coming out. And of course,

they do these beautiful backdrops that it's a fully staged opera. And so it's one of the larger productions that we do on campus on the main stage with our own students and symphony. So when is that exactly? Well, that is exactly the 14th and 16th of February. So they do it on Friday and Sunday. And they like to have a lot of fun by bringing this all together. It is all the operas they do are fun, and they're approachable, and the students just do an incredible job. And what's also really cool about this is because of the number of opera singers they have on campus, some of the cast changes from Friday night to Sunday. So when you come to this on Friday, you have different performers than on Sunday. And so even our video folks are going to be recording both operas for the production work just so that all the students are able to be recorded and be able to see themselves afterwards. So when I looked at the dates for this, I thought I was symbolically put on February 14th Valentine's Day, but that just happens to be a Friday and a

Sunday. Yep, and this is how we usually do it. It's usually the same Friday and Sunday in the calendar year each year. And so they'll come in and rehearse on stage for a couple of weeks before they take the performance live. And what's exciting is they also involve members of our theater faculty who come over and help with the backdrops. So it's a big to doing, and it's a lot of fun. We really enjoy being a part of it. And speaking of students, like you just were a minute ago, a former Pittsburgh State student will be performing at the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts in about mid to late February. Absolutely. Jennifer Napp is coming back and she has had an amazing career. She started as a Christian artist and of course graduated from Pitt State. So she has connections with our music program and we're super proud whenever one of our alumni can come back. She's also an author. So we're also going to have several book clubs around campus that are reading her book and she's going to be meeting with them while she's here as well. So in addition to that, we have a master class. So she's also going to be teaching students here on campus about

the music industry and what it's like to be a performer out in the in corporate music. So it's super exciting to have all of those opportunities for our students and readers here on campus. And for the public, we're super thrilled to have the opportunity for them to come to the master class as well as the concert. One other note on ticketing that you had brought up is we also love it when people want to figure out what seat they want to sit in. If they come by the building, we will show them right where the seats are so they can kind of get a judge of what seats favorite for them. Everybody has their own favorite seat, which is really fun. I have mine and people want to come in and sit in 10, 15 different spots in the room just to figure out which one they want to buy. We're all for it. We love to have them stop by and it's a great way to understand what you're going to be walking into on the day of the concert.