The Otterbein College Department of Music will present Écoute: pieces of Reynaldo Hahn, a one man show on the life and music of French composer Reynaldo Hahn, as performed by baritone Norman Spivey at 7 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 25, at the Battelle Fine Arts Center’s Riley Auditorium, 170 W. Park St., Westerville. This program is free and open to the public.

Écoute: pieces of Reynaldo Hahn draws on his experiences and relationships, particularly those with his closest friends, the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt and the exceptional writer Marcel Proust, and celebrates the inspirations of his music. The performance moves between text, music, and poetry to evoke not only a singular composer, but also an era when cultures were defined by their artists. The show began touring to theatres, music conservatories, and universities around the country earlier this year, and has been invited to be part of an upcoming off-Broadway reading series in New York. The show will also be featured at the 2010 national meeting of the National Association of Teachers of Singing in Salt Lake City.

Norman Spivey, a veteran of musicals, operetta and opera, earned degrees from Southeastern Louisiana University, University of North Texas and University of Michigan. A Fulbright grant to Paris, where he worked with renowned baritones Gabriel Bacquier and Gérard Souzay, led to concert and opera engagements throughout France, as well as a tour of France and Canada as Papageno in Mozart’s The Magic Flute. He has sung Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall and performed the American premiere of Poulenc’s rediscovered Quatre Poèmes de Max Jacob. Spivey has received fellowships from the Aspen Music Festival and the Institute for Advanced Vocal Studies in Paris and in 2003 he received the prestigious Van L. Lawrence Fellowship awarded jointly by The Voice Foundation and the National Association of Teachers of Singing. He has served as officer on the local, regional, and national level for NATS, and his writings on musical theatre singing have appeared in the NATS Journal of Singing. Along with Penn State musical theatre voice colleagues, he is on the faculty of Bel Canto/Can Belto: Learning to teach and sing for musical theatre.

For more information please contact the Department of Music at 614-823-1508.