WKU’s Department of Music’s Center Stage Series will present Wayne Pope, baritone, and Julie Pride, piano as they team up for their sixth concert in a series of themed recitals.  This year’s theme: Fantasies, Frogs and Fairytales.  Please join us for this free concert that will take place in the Ivan Wilson Fine Arts Recital Hall on Western’s Campus at 3pm on April 18, 2010.  The program features songs from composers such as Brahms, Schubert and Holst along with songs by Lerner and Loewe, Anthony Newly and Joe Raposo whose topics are about sirens, witches, fairies, imagination and, of course, frogs.

“It’s fun to have a theme from which to work,” says Pope, an Associate Professor of Music at WKU.  “We find songs from classical repertoire of all time periods and songs from all kinds of musical theatre that tie into the theme.”  Pope and Pride, who spends her days as Community Development Coordinator for Hospice of Southern Kentucky but is an active freelance pianist, have taken their programs on the road around Kentucky and recently to New Orleans where they performed in the award winning Trinity Artist Series.  Pope and Pride, while serious musicians, take a lighter approach to the performances making them more like informances (performances which include dialogue about the background of the various pieces).  “Don’t get me wrong”, says Pope, “We’re not a comedy team, but we guarantee you’ll smile.”  Pride inserts, “We just like to make the entire process fun as well as meaningful and artistic.”  The duo will be joined by Ching-Yi Lin on violin and Sarah Berry on the cello for a Baroque selection.  The hour long program is free and open to the public.