When February arrives, the snowflake decor is tossed aside for large red hearts and XOXO’s. For one special day, people feel oddly obligated to express their feelings with large bouquets, overpriced chocolates and fancy dinners with live orchestras.
And though the fine dining experience might not be available here in Murray, a Valentine centered musical performance will be.
The department of music will host Valentine Schmalentine: a Variety Show, that will showcase both the sweetness and the silliness of the love-focused holiday. Whether you have a special sweetheart or just yourself, the performance will offer both the single, and those who have mingled, a fun experience.
Organizer Stephanie Rea, professor of flute, said she was influenced to host the performance by a collaboration call from Josh Adair, coordinator of humanities, centered on the humanities theme of the year: telling tales.
“I came up with the idea based on when I would be doing it, so I knew it would be this semester,” Rea said. “I’ve always thought love was a great theme. I kind of thought a Valentine’s love theme would work and it just kind of grew from there.”
The title of the show was crafted to poke a little fun at Valentine’s Day with a mixture of classical music, poetry and sprinkles of improv coming from various featured performers including Rea, Christy D’Ambrosio, pianist; Christopher Mitchell, professor of voice; Ash Stemke, assistant professor of composition; Bonnie Cross Stone, department of music alum; Carrie Jerrell, associate professor of creative writing; and EQ BLU, Murray State’s student a cappella group.
“We didn’t really know what we were going to do, we had some ideas,” Rea said. “I added Carrie Jerrell pretty early (on), but again, I was pitching it to her and not really knowing what it was going to be.”
The variety show continued to change as the roster of performers continued to grow alongside the anticipation.
“I would have never thought that I would do something like this, but it’s really a kind of neat thing,” Rea said.
Although Rea will primarily be performing classical music on flute, EQ BLU will grace the stage with a Grammy winning song and improv, that Vice President of EQ BLU, Madison Newlon said the group was honored to be a part of it all.
“We have worked hard on different improv techniques that have helped us not only grow as a group, but as people,” Newlon said. “We have been getting out of our comfort zones and growing closer together.”
Newlon said the group has been improvising different tunes that match the Greek forms of love while also giving mini-monologues that correspond with them.
The performance is at 5:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 15 in the Performing Arts Hall.
