Melanie Helton, an associate professor of voice, said she’s watched her fair share of capstones.

She said final recitals mean much more to students than a simple performance — it often becomes a display of what they have learned throughout their years at MSU.

“It’s usually a culmination of four years of work,” Helton said. “The joy of which the students perform and to see their families and friends just glorifying in the progress that they’ve made and knowing we’ve done the best we can with them — it’s just wonderful to see.”

Years in the making
Joshua Baum, a vocal performance doctoral student, said his end-of-the-year recital has not been an overnight creation.

Unlike undergraduate vocal performance majors, doctoral students are required to complete four recitals during their years in the program.

In addition, they are required to perform a final recital accompanied with a one-hour lecture, where students explain the work they performed and present research on the artists whose work has been showcased.

Baum said he has spent about three years researching Italian composer Francesco Santoliquido and will present Santoliquido’s work during his final recital.

Baum said he was amazed by Santoliquido’s music and when he began researching the artist more in-depth, he found little information on the Italian composer — something that made Baum even more motivated to uncover Santoliquido’s musical history.

“I didn’t find anything, so I started digging here and there,” Baum said.

“I decided it would be a really great topic to focus on, and even when I finished my research on him, I realized there were more questions being posed than answers with him.”

Finding the time
Betsy Bledsoe, a vocal performance graduate student, said squeezing in one of the most important performances of the year has not been an easy task.

Bledsoe is performing music in Italian, German, English and French during her recital and said the stress to prepare adequately has been a challenge — especially while trying to prioritize the health and quality of her voice.

“I would love to spend five hours singing a day, but I just can’t,” Bledsoe said.

“You have to plan your day and sort of find other ways of practicing, like listening to recordings or studying your music.”

Bledsoe said her recital holds more weight than others she performed because her family members, who are from Missouri, will be attending.

“I haven’t seen my parents since Christmas break, so it’ll be exciting for them to come up and hear me sing,” Bledsoe said. “It’s a little bit stressful, because you want to keep preparing, but you have family in town who aren’t here normally and you want to hang out with them.”

Just for fun
Not all students partaking in final recitals are required to face the crowd during their performance in order to sport a cap and gown next month.

Anna Wegener, a music therapy senior, is voluntarily performing in a final recital because it’s the last chance she will be able to perform as a student at MSU.

Wegener said her voice recital will be in combination with one of her friends from the College of Music who also will perform.

“It’s a fun opportunity, since I am graduating,” Wegener said.

“I wanted to take that last opportunity and kind of live it up.”