In Brief

A Night at the Opera

One of the highlights of the winter term was Opera Night with the Academy of Vocal Music (AVA). The AVA is among the premier graduate schools in opera in the country; its students go on to the world’s great opera houses — since 1980, over 50 have joined the Metropolitan Opera’s roster alone.

The AVA performance in the Annette Pennoni Living Room at Bentley Hall consisted of great arias alternating with famous showtunes. Highlights included fourth-year tenor Zachary Rioux’s jaunty rendition of the aria from Verdi’s Rigoletto, “La donna è mobile (woman is fickle)”, thirdyear baritone Benjamin Dickerson soulful “Some Enchanted Evening” from Richard Rogers’ South Pacific; first-year mezzo-soprano Jenny Anne Flory and fourth-year soprano Emily Margevich’s sprightly duet, “Barcarolle,” from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann; and fourth-year soprano Yihan Duan and Zack Rioux romantic excerpts from La Bohème by Puccini — a duet that had some of our students gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes. (Duan, a native of China who came to the U.S. to study at the AVA, is currently a semi-finalist in the hugely prestigious Metropolitan Opera competition whose finals are coming up soon.) The evening concluded with a rousing rendition by all five singers of “Wunderbar” from Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate

The performances were accompanied on the piano by the incomparable José Melendez, who played without break for the entire hour-long program.

It was an inspiring event — an introduction to opera for many students. Those present for the concert sat enthralled and those who were coming in and out of Bentley Hall stopped in their tracks. Truly an evening to remember!

Keyed Up

In preparation for A Night at the Opera, Pennoni had the piano moved from the first floor student kitchen to the Bentley Hall lobby and had it retuned. In turn, we now invite students to sit down and play (as long as there are no classes in session!) and now showtunes, Billy Joel and movie soundtracks resonate often throughout the College.

Pure & Simple

In partnership with Drexel Hillel and Judaic Studies, Pennoni brought in writer and translator, David Stromberg to read from his new translation of Simple Gimpl, the Definitive Bilingual Edition. One of the most influential stories of the 20th century, Nobel Prize laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Simple Gimpl is the story about a hapless yet charmingly resilient baker named Gimpl, who resists taking revenge on the town that makes him the butt of every joke. Stromberg read excerpts from his new, gorgeously produced, bilingual edition of Singer’s classic, and answered questions about his translation process, his work with the Isaac Bashevis Singer Literary Trust, and his own background and research.

“That was one of the best events I’ve ever attended — anywhere,” said assistant teaching professor Toni Pitock of Drexel’s Department of History.

A Knight to Remember

Darrell Omo-Lamai, BS/MS materials science ’23, Honors, was named a recipient of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars program at Stanford University. This interdisciplinary leadership program for graduate students selects only 158 finalists from more than 11,000 applicants, from which a final cohort of 100 Scholars was selected. Darrell will receive up to three years of funding for his graduate studies at Stanford and participate in a variety of cocurricular and leadership development activities with other Scholars. He had already been accepted to Stanford’s doctoral program in materials science, where he hopes to continue his research on sustainable energy storage solutions. During his time at Drexel, Darrell has been an active part of Pennoni, being selected as a STAR Scholar, an Aspire Scholar, and a student ambassador for Undergraduate Research & Enrichment Programs.

Speaking the Same Language

Drexel set an institutional record with 12 applicants and two semi-finalists — including one recipient — this year to the Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. CLS offers 6-10 week intensive summer language institutes in critical foreign languages for undergraduate and graduate students. The program is part of a U.S. government effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical foreign languages. Languages applied for include Korean, Hindi, Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Portuguese and Japanese. Andrea Eleazar, public health ’23 was selected for Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of Indonesia. During her time at Drexel, Andrea participated in the Honors Program and was a 2020 STAR Scholar, a 2020-21 Aspire Scholar and a UREP ambassador.