“Affects of the Baroque” Faculty Recital to be Held Sept. 21 at OBU

Faculty representing OBU’s Division of Music in the Warren M. Angell College of Fine Arts will present a recital themed, “Affects of the Baroque.” The performance will take place Thursday, Sept. 21, at 7:30 p.m. in Raley Chapel’s Yarborough Auditorium. The community is invited to attend the free performance, which will include Dr. Kathy Scherler, assistant professor of music education, soprano; Dr. Stephen Sims, assistant professor of music, worship leadership, baritone; and Dr. Benjamin Shute, assistant professor of music and director of preparatory department, Baroque violin. The trio will be joined by guest harpsichordist, Anastasia Abu Bakar.

The recital will include music from Bach, Handel and other Baroque composers.

Scherler noted the event was developed after a conversation between her and her music colleagues discussing their love for Baroque music.

“We have the distinct pleasure of having Dr. Ben Shute on our faculty, whose violin performance study has centered on the Baroque era and early music performance practice,” Scherler said. “Dr. Stephen Sims and I taught a voice technique class together last year and learned that we share a similar approach to vocal production and performance.”

Before joining the OBU faculty in 2014, Scherler was assistant professor of music at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, and Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. She served as visiting assistant professor of music at the University of Texas at Arlington. Currently, she coordinates the OBU Music Education program, supervises music education student teachers, teaches private voice, and is active as a choral clinician and teacher mentor in Oklahoma and Texas public schools.

Sims serves as assistant professor of music and worship leadership in the Division of Music. He was most recently an instructor of voice at Wayland Baptist University in Plainview, Texas, before joining the OBU faculty. He studied voice with Don Clark, Ron Turner, Gerald Dolter and Karl Dent and has participated in master classes with Arnold Rawls, Stephen Salter, Earle Patriarco and John Packard.

Shute has enjoyed a diverse performing career on modern and period instruments in the United States and abroad. Following his debut with Stephen Gunzenhauser and the Delaware Symphony, he has collaborated as soloist with orchestras internationally in concertos from the seventeenth to twentieth centuries. Orchestral activities include serving as concertmaster of the Boston Chamber Orchestra and cofounding concertmaster-director of the New England Conservatory Early Music Society.

Anastasia Abu Bakar studied at the conservatories of Freiburg, Florence and Frankfurt, where her teachers included Robert Hill, Alfonso Fedi and Eva Maria Pollerus, also working closely with Jesper Christensen. A specialist in the various national styles of basso continuo, her realizations of Blavet’s Op. 2 sonatas are forthcoming from PRB Productions.

“It is a blessing to serve alongside such wonderful musicians as fellow faculty, musicians who are also strong men of faith,” Scherler said. “We hope the audience will enjoy the recital and the beautiful accompaniment of Anastasia Abu Bakar joining us on the harpsichord.”