“The Rose & Other Flowers of Song” I thought that the performance went very well. All of the performers seemed excited about being there, and all took on the role of the song’s character. Some performers, however, did not pronounce their words very well. For example, the song “Du bist wie eine Blume” sang by Karlton Wallace did not have very good diction. The words he sang seemed to have country slang although it is German. Overall, Dr. Jones did a very good job at preparing his students to perform in front of a large crowd of people and I was impressed. One song I noticed that I did not like the most was “Come to my Garden,” from the musical, Secret Garden by Lucy Simon. Sydney Hough, soprano, and Katherine Brown, mezzo-soprano, sang this as a duet. This musical was on Broadway in 1991, making it one of the more contemporary musicals. I believe the more recent the musical the easier it is in some aspects because as music has progressed since Mozart and Beethoven, it lost the classical touch old music had – it loses the need for technique. . Sydney Hough began singing first, and was followed by Katherine. Sydney’s performance was very good; she seemed to be in sync with the music. Her tone was dark, and in her lower range was sometimes too airy. Katherine’s singing, I thought, was not good. Her diction was poor and her intonation with Sydney was poor. They harmonized towards the end of the song, and maybe out of nervousness or lack of practice, Katherine became flat and out of tune. I really did not hear much change dynamically, pulling away from the performance. Compared to the duet last on the program, this piece sounded very unprepared and mediocre. My favorite piece of the evening was “The Flower Duet,” from Lakmé sang by two sopranos, Jennifer Pagano and Shana Mayerand. The sound was bright, but I believe it fits the song. Jennifer began the song very into character; she looked out into the audience as if she saw the flowers being talked about in the song. As the song progressed, she used the stage and even “talked” to Shana as if everything was real. When Shana came in, they were singing the chorus and harmonizing. The harmonies were beautiful; very in tune and together. Most of the notes were very high, so they sang in their head-voice most of the time. Jennifer has a lot of vibrato, and I’m not sure if I like it so much. Her voice almost sounds like her tongue is too far back in her mouth, causing a block in her airflow. This piece is from an opera though, so I suppose the very operatic and dark tones fit the composer, Léo Delibes’, usual style. After researching Delibes, I found that he has produced 3 ballets, 3 miscellaneous pieces, 25+ Operas, and 10+ songs (Wikipedia). I also noticed that most of his songs, or ballets, included more than one person.