Faculty recital to feature JC and VCU

Jaime Namminga, along with five other faculty from Jamestown College and Valley City State University, will collaborate to give a recital at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday in the Reiland Fine Arts Center’s DeNault Auditorium on the campus of Jamestown College. The recital is free and open to the public.

Performers collaborating with Namminga are Dr. James Adams, trombone; Dr. Leesa Levy, soprano; Dr. Jorge Variego, clarinet; Leanne Villareal, soprano and Dr. Richard Walentine, baritone.

Works to be performed include Launy Gröndahl’s “Concert pour Trombone et Piano”; arias from Georges Bizet’s “Carmen,” Kirke Mechem’s “Tartuffe,” W.A. Mozart’s “Don Giovanni,” Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohéme,” and Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Samson et Dalila”; Irving Fine’s “Childhood Fables for Grownups;” Burt Bacharach’s “A House is Not a Home;” and Francis Poulenc’s “Sonata for Clarinet and Piano.”

Namminga is a collaborative pianist who works regularly with vocalists, instrumentalists and choirs. Additionally, she has experience with chamber ensembles and dance accompanying for ballet. She earned a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from the University of Sioux Falls and Master of Music degree in collaborative piano from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where she was awarded Most Outstanding Performer. Namminga currently serves as a full-time lecturer and faculty accompanist at Valley City State University and is also part of the music adjunct faculty at Jamestown College.

Adams is an assistant professor of brass at VCSU and director of the Valley City Civic Orchestra. He earned a doctorate in trombone performance/pedagogy and instrumental conducting from the University of Northern Colorado and a master’s degree in trombone performance/pedagogy from the University of Maryland College. Professionally, he has performed in Europe and the United States with a variety of ensembles, including the Washington Korean Symphony Orchestra, the Greeley Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cheyenne Symphony Orchestra and the Longmont Orchestra and Chorale.

Levy has served as Director of Choral Activities at VCSU since 1999 where she is also associate professor of voice. She holds a bachelor’s degree in music education from Mansfield University, a master’s degree in vocal performance and pedagogy from University of Texas Austin and a DMA in vocal performance and literature from North Dakota State University. She has performed as a soprano soloist with the Weiden Synfoniker and in concert and recital venues throughout Bavaria and beyond. Additionally, Levy has been active in community and semi-professional music theater and opera on two continents.

Variego is a composer and performer who obtained his master’s degree with double major in composition and clarinet performance from Carnegie Mellon University where he attended as a Fulbright fellow. He also holds a Ph.D. in music composition from the University of Florida and the JD equivalent from the National University of Rosario. He recently released his first solo CD “Necessity” under the Albany records label. His dissertation piece “Colors” was premiered in August 2011 by the Symphonic Orchestra of Rosario, Argentina. Dr. Variego is currently the woodwind and theory instructor at Valley City State University.

Villareal, member of the adjunct music faculty at Jamestown College, pursued undergraduate studies at the University of Alberta and Wilfrid Laurier University. Her graduate studies at the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, N.J., afforded her the opportunity to perform the world-premiere of five new works with the New York Philharmonic and a Grammy-winning recording of Dvorak’s Requiem with the New Jersey Symphonic Orchestra as a member of the Westminster Symphonic Choir. Her focus on art-song repertoire spans works by Mozart through Strauss and Ravel, contemporary works by such composers as Musto and Schwantner, as well as Canadian composers Fleming and Forsyth.

Walentine is professor and chair of the department of music at Jamestown College. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and his DMA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. In addition to his applied voice studio, he teaches classes in diction, song and opera literature, vocal pedagogy, performance workshop, opera history, harmony/theory and music appreciation.

Tags: diversions, performances