Crimson and Gold Connection; Patrick Howell

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection, keeping you connected with the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. Glad that you could join me this week for the Crimson and Gold Connection. On 89KRPS, I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro. This week, I'm joined by the director of the Pittsburgh State University Opera, Patrick Hal. Welcome Patrick and thank you for joining me on the Crimson and Gold Connection. Thank you for having me. Just around the corner on February 9th and 11th, the Pitt State Opera and the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra will be performing Gilbert and Sullivan's, the Pirates of Penn Sense. It takes place at the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts on February 9th, starting at 7.30pm and on February 11th, a Sunday, Maddenay at 3pm. So how did this collaboration of the PSU Opera and the SA key Symphony Orchestra come together to perform Pirates of Penn Sense? Well, we have been performing together in collaborating, I should say, for a long time, the Symphony and the Opera Program.

For this specific work, this was a work that I chose and was lucky enough to have the Symphony be willing to perform this work for us and with us. And this is just one of our annual performances. So you've performed the Pirates of Penn Sense before versus before? We have, well, we actually have done the Pirates of Penn Sense before. It's been about nine years ago, but we do collaborate at least every other year with the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra on some major works, some opera or operetta. What makes Pirates of Penn Sense so popular? It first came out in 1879. We're almost 104 years later. It's still being performed. Well, I think the first thing that gets people is Pirates. Everyone loves Pirates, and especially with, we saw a resurgence of that with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies becoming so popular. So then everyone is like, yeah, Pirates, and the other thing is the music is really catchy.

It's fantastic. It's fun. The humor still works, you know, even over 100 years later. It's still hilarious, and it's just a really fun show. And I think that, you know, it's something that kids can get into because they can relate to seeing the Pirates on stage, and it's not too long. It runs under two hours, generally. So that helps too. It's not a long day at the theater. So somebody that hasn't heard of Pirates of Penn Sense? What's the story? Well, the story is of a pirate who has been a apprentice, a young pirate who's been a apprentice to a band of pirates when he was young, and the show starts with it being his 21st birthday, and he's getting ready to leave and go out on his own. And so he does, but the Pirates decide they don't like that, and they want to get him back.

Meanwhile, he runs into this beautiful young lady that he wants to marry and decides he's going to. But the Pirates trick him, well, not really trick him. They tell him, actually, you were born in Leap Year, so you're not really 21. You're only five. So you have to come back with us. But anyway, I won't ruin the story, but it does have a happy ending. It sounds like a lot of pirate trickery, a lot of pirate trickery, and it sounds like a complicated plot, but it's really very simple and easy to follow. I'm speaking with Patrick Halley's director of the Pittsburgh State University Opera. They'll be performing with the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra on February 9th and February 11th. The Pirates of Penn's Anne's taking place at the Vignal Family Center for the Arts. What's the like for an opera to perform live with a symphony orchestra?

Well, for the students, it's a really great experience. I should say both for the students that play in the orchestra, as well as the students on stage. We have a combination of both students and some community professional faculty members, both in the pit and on stage, but I definitely would say for the students, it's a great experience for them to get used to singing with a live orchestra to get used to that experience and following the conductor, staying with the orchestra, and while moving around and singing and projecting into the theater. And we're really, we're so lucky to have the space that we have to perform in at the Vignal. It's a perfect space for opera, so. Yeah, it's a professional theater, performance theater. It has everything we could possibly ask for. In a personal level, what's it like to work with another conductor? Well, for me, as a director to work with a conductor like Raoul is fantastic.

We get along really well and we have worked together enough now that we know how each other needs in a rehearsal. It doesn't take much for us to sort of, you know, have a lot of, you know, some give and take. There's no big blow up arguments going on or anything like that. I understand. That can happen in the performing arts. They certainly can, but we're, we, we both are, we get along really well. So and I, I enjoy working with him very much. Tell me a little bit about yourself. Where are you from? Originally, I am from North Carolina. I grew up there and went to undergrad there and did some grad work and upstate New York. And I've been on the faculty here at PSU since 2005, so and I direct opera here and teach applied voice lessons and some other course work related to voice for vocal majors. Did you ever think you'd find yourself here in the four states in the, in the southeast

Kansas? No. What did you see yourself doing? Well, I don't know, I, well, initially I, I set out to be a performer and I did a lot of work as a, you know, professionally performing. But I'm decided that really, all the traveling and, and uncertainty of that life just really wasn't for me. So started to look into academia. So which led me here? Yeah, interesting. We see these big performances. They come through the bicknull sometimes and it is a very, well, how, what would you call that a, it's not that it's not stable, it is, but it's constantly moving. It's a gypsy life. Gypsy life. Perfect. Which some people love, it just is not for me. And so you have the best of both worlds here working with students here at Pittsburgh State. You got the Bicknull Family Center for the Arts now to perform in. Yes. You got a great guy who in Rallamon get to work with and collaborate with. It sounds like you got a, yeah, and I get to perform when I want to and I have a lot of opportunities here with the symphony to perform or, you know, collaboration with

my other colleagues on campus and also off campus. I've been speaking with Patrick Hal. He's the director of the Pittsburgh State University Opera, which is performing Gilbert Insolven's The Pirates of Pans Ants with the Southeast Kansas Symphony Orchestra, February 9th and 11th at the Bicknull Family Center for the Arts. Patrick, thanks for joining me this week on the Crimson and Gold Connection. Thank you for having me. And for more information, you can visit at BicknullCenter.com. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection Wednesdays at 850 and Fridays at 350.