Faculty, student collaborate on performance of Stabat Mater March 25

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater” will be presented in a faculty-student recital Friday, March 25, at Ripon College. The performance will begin at 5 p.m. in Demmer Recital Hall, C.J. Rodman Center for the Arts. Admission is free.

Assistant Professor of Music Erin K. Bryan will sing the soprano solos and Lydia Wiley Deal ’22 of Whitewater, Wisconsin, will sing the alto solos. Adjunct Instructor of Music Andrew Schaeffer will collaborate on the College’s Bruce Case portative organ.

The 12-movement work by the Italian Baroque composer was written in 1736 and is a sacred piece and a capsule of Baroque operatic style. It was described by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau as “the most perfect and touching duet to come from the pen of any composer.”

Bryan has been praised for her “deft” operatic characterizations and a voice that is “a lyric soprano of exceptional beauty.” Engagements include work with Kentucky Opera, Cedar Rapids Opera, Madison Savoyards and Fresco Opera, and she is featured as Young Anne/#1 on the recently released world-premiere recording of Conrad Susa’s Transformations. She holds degrees from Lawrence University and the University of Louisville, as well as a doctor of musical arts degree in vocal performance from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Wiley Deal is pursuing majors in music education and physics with a minor in mathematics. She is a member of the College’s instrumental and vocal performing ensembles, plays for musicals and directs the children’s music ministry at the First Congregational Church of Ripon.

Schaeffer is a Chicago native and serves as director of music and organist at Luther Memorial Church in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. He also is editor-at-large of The Diapason, one of the oldest and largest American journals devoted to organ, harpsichord, and church music. He holds degrees from St. Olaf College and Yale University as well as a doctor of musical arts degree from the University of Oklahoma.

(Photo: Clockwise from top left, Lydia Wiley Deal ’22, Erin Bryan and Andrew Schaeffer)