Art Reach Winter Concert Series hosts Spanish flamenco-inspired performance

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Art Reach of Mid Michigan, 111 E. Broadway St., came alive Sunday afternoon with the sounds soft guitar notes and soprano vocals floating through its halls.

Spanish Songs for Voice and Guitar, performed by singer Antoinette Torres Tucker and guitarist Brad DeRoche, was the second of three performances in Art Reach’s Winter Concert Series. More than 60 people attended the concert.

Kathy Hill, executive director of Art Reach, said Tucker was a natural choice to perform in the series.

“We know that she performs and she’s done a concert here before, so it was a short trip to asking her,” Hill said.

In addition to working on the Art Reach Board of Directors, Tucker also works as a secretary at the School of Music at Central Michigan University. She schedules many of the performances hosted by Art Reach and usually selects artists from a local talent pool.

She said many of the center’s recitals feature faculty members from the School of Music, which leads to high-quality, professional-style performances.

“We have a lot of talent in this community,” she said. “This has always been a passion of mine, to get this type of recital together.”

The idea for the Spanish-themed concert came from a conversation between DeRoche and Tucker.

“It’s just always something I’ve wanted to do,” Tucker said. “He brought me a whole bunch of songs, and we just picked and chose which ones we wanted and had time for.”

Although she learned how to sing in various languages, including German, French and Italian, she said she had not sung in Spanish very often prior to the concert.

DeRoche said Tucker’s inexperience did not show.

“I think she did a great job,” he said. “I think that we worked pretty well together, considering the short amount of time we’ve had to work on (the performance).”

DeRoche said the songs performed were Spanish art songs with strong flamenco elements.

“I think the most important elements are bringing out the emotion and the passion of the music, and I think we succeeded,” he said. “That’s what we were aiming for.”

DeRoche is an associate professor of music at Delta College in addition to his work as a temporary faculty member at CMU.

His student, Jacqueline Shelley, came to see the guitar performance.

“I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Shelley said. “It was culturally enriching as well as enlightening.”

She said the performance was more than worth the $6 admission fee.

The final performance in the 2011 Winter Concert Series, featuring James Fiste on cello and Adrienne Wiley on piano, will take place at 4 p.m. March 6.