By: Liz Slocum ~Staff Writer~

As the spring semester comes to an end, Xavier students are very busy completing final projects for their classes. For music majors and minors, these final projects come in the form of spring recitals.

For many of the students who performed in April 11’s recital series, this is the first, second or third time they have performed the pieces they worked hard on all semester before students and faculty of the music department. For the seniors, this is the last time they will ever do so.

On April 11, Amanda Stansfield gave her senior recital in Bellarmine Chapel. A sizeable number of friends, family and faculty members were in the audience enthusiastically listening to her sing. Opening with a sacred piece by George Frederic Handel, her performance featured several pieces in English, Italian, French and German. Stansfield showed her mastery of both vocal technique and the performance of foreign-language pieces. Stansfield ended her show by taking a moment to thank her family, friends and teachers for their support, before singing a final duet with her voice instructor, Maria Ventura. Members of the audience gave a standing ovation as she and Ventura took a final bow.

Later in the evening, several students gave a recital in Long Recital Hall that featured a variety of vocal and instrumental pieces, with Tami Morris accompanying many of them on the piano.

The audience was treated to pieces by composers ranging from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Takatsugu Muramatsu. Junior pianist and soprano Ellen Godbey opened the recital with a Mozart piano piece and later returned to perform a fun and light-hearted vocal piece, also by Mozart.

Included in the program was a guitar duet by first year Alex Browne and Steve Barone of Billy Strayhorne’s mid-20th century piece, “Take the A Train.” Junior percussion student Jonathan Norris closed the performance with a cello piece by Johann Sebastian Bach, played not on a cello but rather on a marimba.