Amanda Koch and Brittany Garrow, both of Rutland; Andrew Thibault of Ira; Charles Mason of Windsor; Richard Olmstead of Ludlow; Lauren Davie of Woodstock; Vicky Huot of Canaan; Mark Vanderzyden of Hudson Falls, N.Y.; and James Fitzgerald of Granville, N.Y., were named to the President’s List for the spring semester at College of St. Joseph in Rutland.

Elizabeth Caldwell, Isaac Brown, Corey Alberico, Sara Gallipo, Spencer Jennings, Anthony Notte and Erika Vincent, all of Rutland; Lyndsi Fischer of West Rutland, Vt.; Samantha Butler and Amanda Loree of Wallingford; Amy Moore of Proctor; Kelly Festa and Margaret Lyle, both of Poultney; Alexandra Jones of Saratoga Springs, N.Y.; Devin Bailey of Schenectady, N.Y.; Raeney Paquette of Granville, N.Y.; Nicole Sparks of Westford, Mass.; Ebony Jones of Washington, D.C., were named to the Dean’s List  for the spring semester at College of St. Joseph in Rutland.

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The silent auction begins at 7 p.m., and the performance begins at 8 p.m. There will also be a 50/50 raffle drawing at intermission.

“The Night of Opera is important to the College of St. Joseph for two reasons; it gives us an opportunity to open our doors to the public for a wonderful cultural event and it raises money for student scholarships,” said Bates Childress, director of development and alumni relations.

Tickets for the performance are $30 per person. All of the proceeds from the auction, raffle, and ticket sales will go to the CSJ Annual Fund for student scholarships. Call (802) 776-5264 for tickets or more information check out www.csj.edu/opera.

The event brings top-notch opera professionals to Rutland.

“The members of this cast have performed all over the world.  College of St. Joseph is deeply appreciative of the event’s core group of loyal sponsors who help underwrite the cost of bringing the performers to Rutland, keeping ticket prices affordable,” Childress said

Sponsorships for the event are available at the following levels: The Friend of the Opera sponsorship at $100 includes two reserved seats and a listing in the sponsor area of the program. The Patron of the Opera sponsorship at $200 includes four reserved seats and a listing in the sponsor area of the program. The Major Event Sponsor at $500 includes six reserved seats and a listing in the sponsor area of the program. The Platinum Event Sponsorship at $1,000 includes eight reserved seats and a listing in the sponsor area of the program.

This year’s performers are:

William Hicks (Pianist and Musical Director)

Hicks, conductor, pianist, and voice coach, recently completed his recording of 127 pieces by Victor Herbert, now available on six CDs in two albums from New World Records.

From 1995 to 2001 Mr. Hicks served as Assistant Conductor for the Metropolitan Opera, and made his Metropolitan Opera stage debut as the concert pianist Lazinski in Giordano’s FEDORA. He has also served as Associate Conductor for the Santa Fe Opera, The Canadian Opera Company, the Cincinnati Opera, and the New York City Opera.

Suzanne Kantorski-Merrill (Soprano)

Kantorski-Merrill is one of today’s most versatile performing artists. She has appeared in leading Operatic roles, as a concert soloist, and in New Music compositions with notable companies worldwide.

Suzanne was a full-scholarship student, and graduate of The Manhattan School of Music, with further studies at the Schulich School of McGill University. This year, Ms. Merrill will star as Mimi, in the feature film, The Bohemians, set in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, portraying an edgy adaptation of Puccini’s La Boheme.

A native Vermonter, Suzanne has served as Voice Faculty at Castleton State College since 2004, and is one of the founding members of the college’s newly established Artist in Residence Program with the Burlington Ensemble.

Jonathan Hare (Baritone)

Praised in previous productions for his robust voice and comic flair, North Carolina-born Baritone Jonathan Hare is based in New York City.

He holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music.

Recent performances include Trigorin in Chekhov’s The Seagull, also with the Dicapo Opera Theatre, which was staged in New York and at the Szeged National Theatre in Hungary.

Sara Louise Petrocelli (Mezzo-soprano)

Sara Louise Petrocelli, mezzo soprano from New Jersey, makes her debut this summer with the dell’Arte Opera Ensemble as Sesto in La clemenza di Tito. In 2012, she covered the title role of Ciro in Babilonia at the Caramoor Festival, and performed the roles of Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with New Rochelle Opera, and Teresa in La Sonnambulaat the Altamura Center for the Arts.

Kevin Ginter (Tenor)

In the spring of 2010, Mr. Ginter finished a masters program at the Conservatory of Music at Brooklyn College. While at the conservatory, Mr. Ginter sang leading roles in Janacek’s The Cunning Little Vixen, Weill’s Down in the Valley, Offenbach’s Ba-ta-clan, Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Bizet’s Carmen.

Mr. Ginter has attended the prestigious IVAI young artist programs in Tel Aviv Israel and Blacksburg Virginia since 2009. In the fall of 2009, Mr. Ginter made his Carnegie Hall debut singing in The Remarkable Theater Brigade’s production of Opera Shorts.

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CSJ President Richard Lloyd conferred degrees upon the graduates.

Commencement speaker William Shouldice IV, CBO of the Vermont Teddy Bear Co., shared five life lessons with the class of 2013.

“With your degree in hand you will soon enjoy the distinction of being one of the best and the brightest. I would strongly urge you to pick a course that allows you to pursue your passion,” Shouldice said.

Shouldice’s five life lessons are: Passion proceeds performance; Do not let the perfect stand in the way of the possible; Remember where you came from; Pay it Forward, Do Not be the person on the program standing in the way of the Celebration.

“Giving is a learned behavior. Once you have experienced it, I am confident that it will make you feel good and round you out as a person, in your family life and your professional performance by raising your game to include fulfilling your civic duty,” Shouldice said.

Dr. David Balfour, chair of the Arts & Sciences Division, led the processional. Sr. Maxyne Schneider, president of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Springfield, delivered the invocation and President Lloyd gave the benediction. The pianist was Kent Baker, playing “Priest’s March from Athalia” by F. Mendelssohn, during the processional, and Pomp and Circumstance during the recessional.

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Dr. Prida began as an assistant professor of English at CSJ in 2008, teaching a variety of courses in English and cultural studies, ranging from survey courses to literary theory. He earned his PhD in English from Tulane University in 2006.

Dr. Prida’s research interests include pulp magazines, Robert E. Howard, antebellum American popular culture, and exploitation films. He recently published “Conan Meets the Academy” for McFarland Press, which has been nominated for an award from the Robert E. Howard Foundation.

Dr. Prida also received the Student Government Outstanding Faculty award for 2012-13.

Dr. Michael Kesler started at CSJ in 2008 as a part time faculty member. He became a full-time faculty member in 2010, and is currently the division chair for the Psychology and Human Services Division.

Since becoming division chair two years ago, Dr. Kesler has led his division in reviewing and revising curricular and policy issues as related to the Division of Psychology and Human Services.  Under his leadership, the programs have been strengthened.

Dr. Kesler received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Both Dr. Prida and Dr. Kesler have contributed much to the students, and the college over the past five years.  They are always in pursuit of quality in their teaching, their areas of interest and expertise, helping and supporting students, their colleagues , and the college community as a whole.  I am proud to call them my colleagues and my friends,” said Academic Dean Dr. Nancy Kline.

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Bill Shouldice, CBO of the Vermont Teddy Bear Co., will be the commencement speaker. Shouldice served as the president and CEO of The Vermont Country Store for over seven years, a position he earned after spending three years as the executive vice president managing all of the store’s day-to-day operations.

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The focus of his training will be on the long-term effects of critical and traumatic incidents over the career path and life span of police officers, first responders, and emergency personnel.

Also included will be a discussion on the need for debriefing and ongoing clinical support to help stem the tide related to vicarious trauma, PTSD, and other potentially self-injurious or destructive behavior such as suicidality, alcohol and/or other substance abuse, etc., in addition to other problems such as family problems, divorce, etc.

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David has taught at CSJ for many years, mainly in the Psychology and Human Services Division.

He has also developed the beta-test version of the Compassion Measurement Tool (CMT). He is now gathering responses in order to do an analysis of the CMT and its features.

David’s paper tackles compassion as a phenomenon that involves entering a relational space. The compassion space can be seen as the inter-subjective experience that sits between self, the other and the search for a sense of well being. Defining how people understand the compassion space is related to how people understand compassion.

A survey of 410 respondents reviewed how people define compassion. The analysis led to a better understanding of The Theory of Compassion Development and the spectral nature of compassion phenomena. The research indicates that not only are there different ways that people define compassion, but also different ways that people may practice it.

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Several of the individual essays in the book are also nominated for awards. Those are “Barbarism Ascendant: The Poetic and Epistolary Origins of the Character and his World” by Frank Cofman, “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Women: Gender Dynamics in the Hyborian World” by Winter Elliot, “Statistics in the Hyborian Age: An Introduction to Stylometery” by Daniel Look, “Hyborian Age Archeology: Unearthing Historical and Anthropological Foundations” by Jeffrey Shanks, “Canaan Lies Beyond the Black River: Howard’s Dark Rhetoric of the Contact Zone” by Paul Shovlin, and “Robert E. Howard’s Barbarian and the Western: A Study of Conan through the West and the Western Hero” by Daniel Weiss.

Prida’s book contains 10 essays from various sources exploring the figure of Conan the Barbarian. The book is divided into two parts: the first group of essays looks at the original Conan, as written by Robert Howard and published in the 1930s pulp magazine Weird Tales. The second part investigates the culture figure of Conan in video games, movies, folklore and parody.

The collection draws from a variety of academic perspectives: There are some traditional literary discussions, a stylometry [statistical analysis of texts] paper, cultural studies papers, gender studies work, and a folklore paper.

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Those interested in volunteering or being a donor can contact Judy Morgan at judy.morgan@csj.edu.

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