WMU

A new fund has been set up to help students and employees at Western Michigan University who are struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 is having a huge impact on higher education nationwide. Colleges and universities have shifted to online classes during the pandemic.

Western Michigan University's Live and Interactive series continues at 7:30 pm Wednesday, Feb 19 with a performance by guest artist John Wesley Wright. A tenor who can switch between opera, Broadway, and American styles, he will be joined by WMU voice faculty and student ensembles for a concert called Spirituals: From Ship To Shore. 

In an interview with Cara Lieurance, also including Dr. Ken Prewitt, a professor of voice at WMU, Wright talks about working with Western students in his residency, and teaching them to perform spirituals without sheet music. Wright and Prewitt preview some of the concert's highlights, and Wright talks about how his desire to be a performer began in childhood, when he saw the television series Fame. A member of the American Spiritual Ensemble for 14 years, he credits Ysaÿe Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock and singer Linda Tillery as personal and professional influences.

Edward Dusinberre is the first violinist of the Takács Quartet, which will perform on the Fontana series at 7:30 pm on Friday, Feb 21 in the Dalton Center Recital Hall at Western Michigan University. He's also the author of Beethoven For A Later Age: Living With The String Quartets. In a conversation with Cara Lieurance, Dusinberre previews the three works on the program, including Fanny Mendelssohn's String Quartet in E-flat, a dramatic Romantic-era work, and one of her best. She was denied a path forward as a musician by her father and brother, says Dusinberre, it being highly inappropriate at the time for a woman to seek recognition for composing.

Established in 1975 by four students at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, the U.S.-based group is celebrating 45 years of exceptional music-making.