While CSU Summer Arts Program wrapped up last weekend at Fresno State, several students are still in Germany where they are learning from world-famous opera singer Bo Skovhus as part of the Romantic Lied program in Germany.
Fresno State music professor Dr. Anthony Radford is there with a group of 29 students. Here’s what he had to say:
August 6th – Press coverage in Germany
“We had our first concert on Thursday night and was reviewed in the German press. We had 15 students singing and five of them were from Fresno State. The review says that Fresno State Masters student in voice Lim Forgey was ‘very impressive’ and that Fresno State senior in voice Emma DenBesten was ‘very charming and had a pleasant voice.’
“It is so exciting for our students to sing German songs for a German audience. Much of the time we sing for audiences who don’t speak the language we are singing in. It is extra exciting for the press to positively review our performances!”
August 1st
“This is a course run by CSU Summer Arts and it’s held at the Hochshule für Musik in Trossingen, basically a music university and one of five in this southern province of Germany. The CSU and this school in Germany have a larger study agreement where CSU students can study here during their junior year. Anyway, Trossingen is a town of 16,000. This is the second time the course has been held here, the first time being Summer 2015. I was invited to coordinate the course and I have been preparing for about a year and a half.
“We have 29 students here ranging in age from 19-46. There are 28 singers and one pianist and they are here to study German Romantic Lieder so German songs that were written in the 19th and 20th centuries by composers like Schubert Schumann, Strauss, Wolf, etc.
“These students come from Fresno State, CSULA, Northridge, Sonoma, Chico, Oregon, COS and are here for three weeks. We have two faculty members from the Music School in Munich, one from this school here in Trossingen, myself and colleague Susan Kane from CSULA. Students spend their days singing German Lieder and coaching it with the faculty. We work on their German and their musical interpretation. When they are not in class they are enjoying German culture! Many of them have never been outside of California.
“Like other CSU summer Arts courses, we hire one superstar in the field to come work with the students. That’s Opera singer Bo Skovhus who is here now working with students for three days. Next week we are doing four concerts in and around this part of Germany.”
The College of Arts and Humanities at Fresno State 