As classical music grows further up in the years, the feelings it conveys remain evergreen. Thursday faculty Christa Durand, Krista Wigle, and Yvonne Wormer held a classical music recital in Schroeder Hall named and themed “Joyfully We Sing.” This was the first vocal faculty recital at SSU since the pandemic.

Durand said the event’s name came about because “we’re so full of gratitude to be singing in this beautiful hall post-pandemic.” Durand and Wigle are both seasoned singers as Soprano powerhouses, and Wormer laid the musical landscape on a massive and gorgeous grand piano.

The unmistakable and giant Brombaugh Opus 9 pipe organ gleamed and towered over the stage as it has in Schroeder for almost a decade. The program featured arias (excerpts from an opera) from across history in French, German, English, and Italian. They also performed some art songs which are by composers so inspired by a poem that they write music to it.

On how the songs tie together they nearly all told a story, and Durand said everything ended up being very happy and pretty. “There’s fast songs and slow songs, but everything is kind of pretty. We were just like let’s sing things that make us happy.”

The singers alternated solo appearances on stage, and they concluded with a performance of “Flower Duet,” a song about a countess and her maid who wrote a phony letter to catch the countess’ adulterous husband trying to have an affair with the maid. Many of the pieces featured entertaining stories like this which the singers would explain before the song. Wormer explained, “Operas are drama it’s so fun, that was [people’s] musical theater of the day.”

Both Durand and Wigle stunned the audience with powerful vocals and shined during their sets. Though both Sopranos, the singers have very distinct voices. Wigle explained: “[Durand’s] is full and gorgeous and there’s a lot of body to her voice, and mine’s a little lighter and chirpier. It’s just more of high overtones.”

Performing in Schroeder hall, Durand said “the sound engineering in that hall is nearly perfect. It’s fabulous you can whisper in there and people will hear it in the back room.” Wormer added “Schroeder is just magical. The singers don’t have to try hard it’s just the acoustics are so beautiful.”

Wormer witnessed the building of the Green Music Center in 2012, he is now working at Sonoma State for 20 years as a collaborative pianist in recitals and classrooms. Durand  and Wigle joined SSU as faculty this last fall, and Durand shared that when they met she joked: “our names are both Durand let’s do a faculty recital together.” The working title at the time was “Double Trouble,” and hopefully that recital will come to fruition in the future.

Speaking on what she hopes audiences attending a classical recital for the first time get out of it, Durand said “a certain type of stillness. There’s something in classical music in doing and listening to it it’s almost like you have to be very still inside yourself, and it stimulates a really deep deep emotion.”