Songs about the wives of King Henry VIII, the Holocaust and Germany-bound giraffes filled the School of Music Recital Hall on Friday night.
Patricia O’Neill, music professor, gave her faculty recital, one that she said was a unique experience for her.
“This is a departure for me. I usually do a variety of different styles,” O’Neill said. “But this year I’m doing mostly songs written in this century by wonderful composers. It’s all contemporary music, and it’s all in English.”
Lori Bade, director of Graduate Studies in Music, said O’Neill’s recitals always showcase her unique repertoire.
“Pat is always pushing herself when she presents a recital,” Bade said. “The bottom line is that Pat will be singing beautifully until the day she is no longer here on this earth, and we can always learn from her beautiful presentation of her recital.”
The Baton Rouge native has shared her musical knowledge with University students who have filled her studio since 1990.
Brian Bonin, doctoral candidate in vocal performance, has studied under O’Neill for three years.
“The biggest thing I’ve gotten from working with her is just to really value every moment in your life,” Bonin said. “It’s something she talks about in singing, but I think it applies equally well to the rest of your life.”
In addition to teaching voice classes, O’Neill also teaches a class on the Alexander Technique.
“[The Alexander Technique] is a kind of psychophysical reeducation process,” O’Neill said. “What Alexander teachers do is help people to recognize what their habitual tensings are like.”
O’Neill said the Alexander Technique is beneficial to singers, as it can prevent such mistakes as tightening the throat to reach a high note.
“One of the most important things you learn in that class is the structure of the human body and that we sometimes have it wrong in our heads,” said Rosella Ewing, a doctoral candidate in vocal performance who has taken the Alexander class.
O’Neill said the Alexander Technique is also useful to non-singers.
“The Alexander Technique, if you really dedicate yourself and really work yourself, can help you to have a fuller life because you are experiencing more of the moment,” O’Neill said. “You’re expanding the moment.”
Bonin said one does not have to be a music major to study the Alexander Technique, and that adding the technique is especially worthwhile for people with physical ailments.
O’Neill has taught the Alexander Technique in several different locations, both inside and out of the United States. She is currently hoping to teach the Alexander Technique in Costa Rica.
O’Neill has traveled extensively because of her performing abilities. When she was 22, she moved to Berlin, where she lived and taught piano for four years. Then she moved to Frankfurt, Germany, where she sang as a leading soprano with the Frankfurt Opera for 2 1/2 years.
Some of her recent travels include Norway, Ireland and China.
O’Neill also enjoys learning languages. She is fluent in German, semi-fluent in French and Italian and is learning Spanish.
She serves on the Faculty Senate International Education Committee, which promotes the internationalization of the University. She co-chairs the committee with Li Li, kinesiology professor.
“We explored what other universities were doing as opposed to what we were doing in all things international, and we pretty much found that LSU is coming up quite wanting in that area,” O’Neill said.
O’Neill said part of her duties as co-chair of the Committee is to advise the University’s administration.
“I do think it’s really important that the administration come out strongly for internationalization,” said O’Neill.
Li said O’Neill is kind, industrious and enthusiastic about her work on the Committee.
“She really puts her heart into this,” Li said.
—-Contact Lindsay Rablais at [email protected]