Marilyn Horne to give master classes at BGSU

BOWLING GREEN, O.—“Opera News” has called her “maybe the most influential singer in American history” and this fall, she’ll be teaching students at Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts.

Famed singer Marilyn Horne returns to Bowling Green Oct. 4-6, as the inaugural artist of the Helen McMaster Endowed Professorship in Vocal and Choral Studies. She last visited BGSU in December 1996 when she gave a sold-out recital on the Festival Series.

Currently focusing on a “master teacher” career, Horne will spend several days privately coaching voice students in the College of Musical Arts. She also will conduct two master classes featuring many of these same students, which will be free and open to the public.

The first master class will take place from 7-9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, and the second, from 2-4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6. Both classes will be held on campus in Kobacker Hall at the Moore Musical Arts Center.

Horne’s five-decade career in opera, concert and recital has been celebrated throughout the world for the power and artistry of her unique and dazzling mezzo-soprano coloratura.

In 1994, she launched the Marilyn Horne Foundation to support young singers in the art of the song. She is the vocal program director at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, Calif. In addition to her ongoing teaching and master class activities, she continues to perform in concert, specializing in programs that reflect her deep and abiding interest and experience, since childhood, in American folk and popular songs.

Helen and the late Harold McMaster established the endowed professorship in spring 2000. Helen McMaster, a long-time Perrysburg resident, has supported the arts at BGSU for many years. In 1992 she served as honorary chair of Bowling Green’s Campaign of the Arts, to which the McMasters donated $150,000.

Generous friends of BGSU, she and her late husband have previously donated to programs in music, business, science and the Center for Photochemical Sciences. They established the Harold and Helen McMaster Professor of Photochemical Sciences position in 1993, helped to purchase a photoelectron microscope for the center in 1992 and gave the University a $1 million gift for the McMaster Endowment Fund, which supports the chemical sciences, in 1985.

Editor’s note: No photography or audio/video recording is permitted in Ms. Horne’s classes.

(Posted September 26, 2005)