Students from the Bob Cole Conservatory of Music at Long Beach State are practicing long hours for their recitals as the academic year ends.
Music education students have private lessons with an assigned professor. At the end of their junior and senior years, these students must do a recital where they showcase what they learned from each lesson and through independent practice.
Students majoring in music education only do a junior recital while those majoring in music performance do both. Cyrus Payne, a third-year student majoring in music education, is currently preparing for his junior recital.
At his community college, Payne started as a bass major but was guided by his professor to go into vocals. He was unsure of pursuing whether to pursue vocal performance which ultimately led him to pursue a music education degree.
He discovered he enjoyed teaching when he began giving private lessons on the side.
“My school [community college] had music education but there wasn’t actually anything [music education major-specific] in the thing,” Payne said. “You were just a normal music major.”
It wasn’t until Payne transferred to CSULB that he officially declared to major in music education, specifically studying classical voice, which he will feature in his recital.
Payne has experience performing on the side but after graduating, he wants to perform full-time for a couple of years. Afterward, he says he wants to teach middle school choir but first must complete his recital.
Junior recitals are a joint-style performance, meaning two students showcase their programs and each student must prepare at least 30 minutes of music.
Payne has been planning his program with his private teacher since the fall semester. The run time for his program is 33 minutes and consists of classical music and music from Black composers.
In preparation for his recital, he had a jury where he memorized half of his program and performed the songs in front of his area director, private teacher and a third party.
After his program was approved, all that was left for him to work on is memorization and performance. He practices whenever a practice room is available but mostly finds himself practicing at night.
They can invite friends and family to watch their recital but those spots fill up fast and students are responsible for paying to use the space.
“The recital is kind of like, I think in theory, you’re taking all of the experience and stuff that you’ve learned in your private lessons, and you’re putting it into a show, right? Into a short concert,” Payne said.
Availability for performance space is usually passed down beginning with graduate students, seniors and finally juniors. Most spots are usually taken before juniors get their pick and because of that, Payne is holding his recital in one of the classrooms.
Regardless of the location of his recital, he continues to sing into the night.