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Music dean, faculty, students travel to Lawrence's sister city for performance, exchange

Five graduate students traveled with the dean of the School of Music and the director of KU’s symphony orchestra to perform in Eutin, Germany, one of Lawrence’s sister cities.

The Jan. 15 concert featured Robert Walzel, dean of music, on clarinet; David Neely, symphony orchestra director, on piano; and students Lukasz Lagun, violin; Robert McNichols Jr., bass baritone; Hugo Alberto Vera, tenor; Amy Elizabeth Cahill, soprano; and Kristian Bucy, soprano.

The group performed opera arias, chamber music pieces, American musical numbers, solo works and popular songs by such composers as Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo Puccini, Johann Strauss, George Gershwin and Astor Piazzolla. They also performed one work by Carl Maria von Weber, a native of Eutin, to commemorate the 225th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

The concert provided an opportunity for the Eutin community to learn about KU’s music program. The city commission will consider a plan developed by Hans Wilhelm Hagen of Rotary Eutin and the Eutin Trade Association to involve KU in performances during Eutin’s summer festival season.

KU and Eutin have partnered before. The two cities have shared numerous musical programs and art exhibitions over the past 20 years. In the past two years, the Lawrence group Friends of Eutin has worked closely with Hagen to expand the internship exchanges, part of the sister-city program that started in 1990.

“The numbers of interns has increased dramatically since that time,” said Frank Baron, professor of Germanic languages and literatures at KU and a member of Friends of Eutin.

In summer 2010, 10 interns from Lawrence worked in Eutin; Lawrence hosted three. For 2011, Eutin will send at least four interns to Lawrence. A committee from KU’s German Department has interviewed and recommended 13 applicants for Eutin.