Blinn to host two upcoming vocal performances

Dr. Diane Burt will perform March 23; Blinn student Mikayla Wallis and Professor Dr. Daniel Johnson will perform ‘The Telephone’ on March 25

March 11, 2022

The Blinn College District Music Department will host two upcoming vocal performances Wednesday, March 23, and Friday, March 25, at the Finke Recital Hall on the Blinn-Brenham Campus.

Blinn will welcome Dr. Diane Burt for a special guest recital on March 23, and Blinn student Mikayla Wallis and Professor Dr. Daniel Johnson will perform Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Telephone” on Friday.

Both 7 p.m. performances are free to the public and will be held in the Finke Recital Hall at the C.F. Schmidt Building, located at 800 College Avenue.

Burt taught opera workshop, voice, and music education classes at Brigham Young University-Idaho for nine years and at Idaho State University for nine years before receiving her doctorate in voice from Indiana. She currently teaches private voice and volunteers as a coach for musical theater productions.

The program for that performance includes selections from Robert Schumann’s  Fraeunliebe und Leben, Op. 42, and Antonin Dvorak’s  Ciganske melodie, Op. 55. In Frederic W. Root’s  The Extract of Opera: Grand Opera in Three Acts, Burt will sing soprano as The Princess, Rasheedah Stewart will sing contralto as The Fairy, Jaycob Steels will sing tenor as The Prince, and Dr. Daniel Johnson will sing baritone as The Rival. The recital also will include Franz Liszt’s Die Lorelei, S. 273, and Dvorak’s “Pisen Rusalky o mesicku” from  Rusalka, Op. 114.

In the Friday performance of “The Telephone,” Johnson will play Ben, who tries to propose to his girlfriend Lucy, played by Wallis, before leaving for a stint of military service. He struggles, however, to compete with his greatest rival for her attention: her phone.

Wallis is in her final semester at Blinn before transferring to Texas State University in the fall to complete her bachelor’s degree in vocal performance with an opera minor. At Blinn, she has been one of the winners of the Blinn Concerto and Aria Competition, was a recipient of the Samuel Duree Endowed Scholarship, and has been recognized as a Chancellor’s Scholar for her academic achievements.

Johnson assists with Blinn’s choral and music theory programs while maintaining a thriving private voice studio. He performed several roles with the University of Utah’s Lyric Opera Ensemble, including Dr. Falke in Die Fledermaus, Sergeant Belcore in L’elisir d’amore, Maximilian in Candide, Sam in Trouble in Tahiti, and Ebenezer Scrooge in the 2016 world première of Michael Leavitt’s A Christmas Carol, with a reprise in the 2017 season. He most recently performed the Marchese from La Traviata with St. George Opera in March 2020. Mary Ann Hatfield will provide piano accompaniment for both performances.

For more information regarding the Blinn Music Program, including scholarship and audition opportunities, visit  www.blinn.edu/music .