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Great Arts at Eastern this week talks with Gregory Gallagher, Assistant Professor of Voice at ENMU

This week on Great Arts at Eastern, Jeff Gentry talks with Gregory Gallagher, Assistant Professor of Voice at ENMU, about his upcoming Faculty recital on February 1st.

Greg graduated from Cedarville University. Does that make you an Ohio native? "It does. I grew up around the Dayton area, and I stayed there most of my life until I went to graduate school."  

When did you first discover a love for music? "From a very early age, everyone tells me that I came out of the womb singing. So, I have been singing pretty much all my entire life."

Early on, did you develop more on the piano or voice? "It did, I wanted to start very early, but we couldn't find a teacher that wanted to start me that young. So, I think I started in third grade and took private lessons all the way through high school." Given his skills of doing both, Greg states:  "Sometimes at church events or things like that. But never in a formal public recital."

Your faculty tenor recital is on February 1st, this Saturday. What can we expect? "well, the thing with this is dedication, which comes from one of the English translations of one of the songs that I am performing. All of the selections were selected based on musical influences in my life that either showed me these pieces, taught me these pieces, or enjoyed these pieces. So, I am going to dedicate a lot of thanks to a lot of people throughout the night.  And give it a personal touch."

What's the most challenging selection? "There are a few. There are some very simple songs that many of our students would sing as music majors, and I wanted to show them that level as well. Then I have a lot of Richard Strauss and Barber, which are very romantic modern composers.  And so be counting, rhythm, vocal technicality of it all is more showy in those." This way the there are some show pleaser pieces as well as some for the aficionados in the audience.

Accompanist, any duets? "Not this time but coming in the future (for the duets). But my accompanist this time is the amazing Mrs. Kayla Paulk."

When vocal students arrive at college, do they sometimes bring habits they need to unlearn?  "Of course, yeah, a lot of the first getting to know each other is just that finding what habits they have and either singing or speech, knowledge of music that is good and that we can use. And perhaps some habits that we need to break." Some examples of bad habits happen " -a lot of it comes with Vowel work, singing tone that occurs on the vowels. So, we spent a lot of time getting rid of bad speech habits, or bad dialect habits out of the singing voice."

Which do you enjoy participating in most you play just for fun on the piano? "I love playing lyrical things. And I've always loved sight-reading things, or I think that's where a lot of my talent has come from. And I could not never get enough of for my lessons. And I was always looking for that new piece that I could try on my own."

Gregory Gallagher Faculty Recital

Buchanan Hall, ENMU

Music Building (MB)

Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020 at 7 p.m.

All the great arts at Eastern are found at <enmu.edu/fineartsevents> And learn more about this program at KENW.org.