Enjoy an Evening of Chamber Music for All Ages Thursday

November 6, 2006

November 6, 2006, Greencastle, Ind. - Themes of innocence and insanity will be explored in an evening of chamber music with Janice Bagwell, soprano, and John Clodfelter, piano, on Thursday, November 9 in the Performing Arts Center's Thompson Recital Hall. Included in the 7:30 p.m. concert will be lullabies and children's poems, as well as text from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream and the observations of William Blake on how childhood innocence is easily destroyed. Assisting Bagwell and Clodfelter will be Allison Edberg, viola; Caitlin Kramer, oboe; Orcenith Smith, tuba; and Keith Tonne, tenor.

"It was a delightful process to find several pieces that are rarely performed," commented Bagwell about the program. One of the highlights is Rodger Vaughan’s "Have You Ever?: Songs for Soprano and Tuba." Composed of six short songs, it features poems about different animals that were written by third-grade students in Colorado.

As part of a community outreach effort, Bagwell and Smith traveled to Greencastle's Bainbridge Elementary School for a pre-concert performance of Vaughan’s piece. The audience was Megan Allen’s fourth-grade class. "It was a joy to see the faces of my students light up during the duet," Allen says. "It was as if they could see the animals right in front of us. We look forward to working with DePauw University in the future.”

An active soloist, conductor and chamber musician, Bagwell holds a Bachelor of Science degree in music education and a Master of Music degree in vocal performance from Ball State University. Her varied professional experience includes serving as an associate instructor in choral conducting and guest lecturer in Celtic vocal music at Indiana University, and teaching preschool, elementary, and high school music. She has also participated in music festivals in Georgia, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana as a soloist and conductor. Currently she is a singer and vocal coach with the Bloomington Chamber Singers and is the event coordinator of the Performing Arts Center at DePauw University.

A 1994 graduate of DePauw, Clodfelter has worked at the University as a staff accompanist and vocal coach since 1996. In the summer of 2005, he received a grant to study in Vienna, Austria under Walter Moore and Carolyne Hague at the Univerität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wein. Clodfelter's other teachers include Karen Taylor, Lorna Grifft, Evelyne Brancart and Hans Graff.

Founded in 1884, the DePauw University School of Music is one of the oldest in the nation and has an established tradition of educating leaders in virtually every facet of music, including performers, educators, composers and administrators. Learn more here.

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