Kent State University at Stark Music Department presents a classical recital by soprano MeeAe Cecilia Nam and pianist Kevin Class on Saturday, Oct. 15 at 7:30 p.m. in Main Hall Auditorium, 6000 Frank Avenue NW in Jackson Township. The concert, which will feature love song favorites by Liszt, Marx, Wolf-Ferrari, Gouvy and Larsen, is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.
 
Nam has extensive experience as soloist in operas, oratorio, sacred and chamber music concerts and recitals in the United States, Germany, Austria and her native South Korea. Her artistry and wide vocal repertoire range have earned her frequent engagements with numerous chamber groups, such as the Boulder Bach Society, Baroque Orchestra of Colorado, the DaVinci String Quartet, German Neuss Chamber Orchestra and Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, to name a few. She sang Voice of the River Han, which was written for her by David Mullikin, at the Music Teachers National Association’s national convention. Recently, Nam sang the U.S. premier of the opera, Songs of Shulamith. She holds a doctorate degree in vocal performance and pedagogy from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Before joining the faculty of Eastern Michigan University’s Music and Dance Department, she taught voice at Metropolitan State College of Denver where she served as chair of the vocal studies program and founder/director of the annual Vocal Arts Competition for Young Colorado Musicians.
 
Class is currently the director of collaborative piano and the music director/conductor of the University of Tennessee’s Opera Theatre. He also is a visiting professor of orchestral conducting at Southwest University in Chongqing, China. As a soloist, Class has performed in numerous venues, such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, New York’s Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Musikverein. In addition to being a pianist, he is active as a conductor of orchestral literature and opera, with conducting residencies at Opera Illinois, the National Opera La Monnaie in Brussels and London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden and the National Opera Studio. In 2009, Class founded and served as conductor and music director of the Seoul International Opera Program, which featured a performance by 40 students from five countries in three, fully staged productions of Mozart’s Magic Flute.  
 
For more information, contact the Music Department at 330-244-5151. To view a list of Kent State Stark’s music events and learn more about the music program, visit stark.kent.edu/music.