Courtesy of Lulu Wu
There is something quietly special about a faculty showcase that reminds you, without any pretense, exactly who is standing at the front of your classroom. The Connecticut College Music Department’s 2026 Spring Faculty Showcase was precisely that, an evening where professors became performers, and the result was a program as eclectic as it was accomplished. From Beethoven’s thundering Waldstein Sonata to an electronic soundscape composed for psychedelic therapy patients, the night moved across centuries and aesthetics with confidence and intention, unified not by genre but by the extraordinary caliber of the artists presenting it.
The concert opened with pianist Eun Joo Lee performing the first movement, Allegro con brio, of Beethoven’s Sonata No. 21 in C major, Op. 53, the “Waldstein.” Completed in 1804 and dedicated to Beethoven’s trusted friend and patron Count Waldstein, the piece is a formidable technical undertaking that demands both physical command and expressive depth. Lee, who has served as piano accompanist for the Connecticut College Choir since 2020 and maintains an active teaching presence at the Community Music School of Springfield and Wilbraham and Manson Academy, brought confident authority to the work. The driving rhythmic pulse and rapidly pulsating harmonic theme of the Allegro con brio filled the hall with an energy that was both bracing and focused, a bold, grounded way to open a night that would only deepen as it went on.
From there, the program shifted into something more intimate. Oboist Libby Van Cleve and pianist Patrice Newman took the stage for Francis Poulenc’s Sonata for Oboe and Piano, written in 1962 and dedicated to the memory of Sergei Prokofiev. It was one of Poulenc’s last works, and it carries the emotional weight of that farewell throughout all three of its movements. Van Cleve’s playing was nothing short of meticulous, each phrase sculpted with extraordinary care, full of sentiment and quiet gravity. Recognized internationally as one of the foremost interpreters of chamber and contemporary music for the oboe, and praised by the Washington Post as “expert” and the San Francisco Chronicle as “dazzling,” Van Cleve brought those credentials to life in real time. The opening Élégie, marked “peacefully, without hurry,” carried a tender sorrow that lingered in the air long after the notes dissolved. The Scherzo crackled with nervous wit, and the final Déploration closed the work with a lamentation so deeply felt that the audience seemed to hold its collective breath. Newman, a founding artistic director of Chamber Music Mystic and an exceptionally seasoned collaborative pianist, was an ideal partner throughout, present, sensitive, and beautifully balanced.
The program then took one of its most unexpected and rewarding turns with Getting Closer by Israeli composer Aviya Kopelman, performed by guitarist Trevor Babb and Van Cleve on oboe. On paper, electric guitar and oboe seem like an unlikely pairing; two instruments from entirely different aesthetic lineages. In practice, the piece became a fascinating negotiation between worlds, and Babb made that negotiation thrilling. A versatile New Haven-based guitarist with a Fulbright Award, Yale School of Music credentials, and a top prize from the 2016 Denver Classical Guitar Competition to his name, Babb arrived with rock-and-roll energy before gradually finding common ground with Van Cleve’s lyrical oboe line. There was real creativity in how Babb moved between electronic effects, unconventional chord voicings, and a more pianistic late-Romantic warmth as the piece progressed; his musicianship felt innate, instinctive, the kind that cannot be entirely taught. Together, the two instruments ended somewhere closer than where they began, which is precisely the point Kopelman was making.
Nick Virzi then took the stage alone with his guitar for Usona, a piece of electronic music he composed on commission from Digital Ambiance, an interdisciplinary design company in Berkeley, California, as part of a collaboration with the Usona Institute, a medical research organization in Wisconsin dedicated to investigating the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. The music and sound design were informed by research conducted at Stanford University on the intersections between sound and the psychedelic experience, and the resulting work was created to provide a therapeutic environment for clinical patients under the influence of psilocybin. For this performance, Virzi presented a new version of the piece, performing live on guitar alongside original film footage of the New York City skyline captured from the Staten Island Ferry. The music explored five distinct ambient soundscapes built around an ocean theme, and what made it extraordinary was how Virzi’s guitar seemed to blur the line between instrument and environment. The sound masses he created evoked the collective movement of a school of fish; a synthesizer built from sampled whale song recordings surfaced and receded beneath the texture; field recordings of Pacific Ocean waves from Big Sur grounded everything in something vast and real. It was immersive, quietly astonishing, and unlike anything else on the program; a reminder that musical creativity, when paired with genuine human curiosity and an innate talent for sound, can open entirely new rooms.
Then came the moment that reframed the entire evening. Before launching into her set, soprano and Professor of Music Jurate Švedaitė-Waller paused and addressed the audience with a thought that settled over the room like a held note. Citing Richard Strauss, she offered: “If we want peace in the world, we must have peace in our souls.” It was a simple declaration, but in context, after an evening already rich with beauty and intention, it landed with real weight, giving the program’s final act a meaning that stretched beyond the music itself.
Accompanied by Newman on piano, Švedaitė-Waller performed three vocal works: Strauss’s “Zueignung,” “Un bel di vedremo” from Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, and “Beim Schlafengehen” from Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder. Her voice was powerful and luminous, yet seemingly effortless, the kind of vocal strength and virtue that sounds like it costs nothing even when you know it costs everything. In “Zueignung,” gratitude poured from each phrase like something long held and finally released. Puccini’s “Un bel di vedremo”, Butterfly’s fragile, soaring vision of reunion, was rendered with all the tension between hope and illusion the aria demands, the voice rising in luminous affirmation even as the music quietly signaled what Butterfly cannot see. And in “Beim Schlafengehen,” one of Strauss’s final works, Švedaitė-Waller drew the evening to a close in stillness, the music releasing its earthly weight, moving toward something like surrender and peace.
It was a fitting end to what had been, from first note to last, a genuine display of the extraordinary talent living within Connecticut College’s music department faculty. What the 2026 Spring Faculty Showcase made undeniably clear is that this department is not simply a collection of capable teachers who perform on the side; these are working artists at the height of their craft, each bringing to the stage a depth of experience, musical intelligence, and expressive commitment that would hold up in any concert hall in the world. From Lee’s commanding Beethoven to Van Cleve’s sentiment-rich Poulenc, from Babb and Virzi’s boundary-pushing contemporary works to Švedaitė-Waller’s transcendent closing set, the evening was a portrait of a faculty that takes both their art and their students seriously. Connecticut College students walk into classrooms every week with these people, and after a night like this, it is impossible not to feel the full weight of how remarkable that is.
