{"id":33477,"date":"2017-07-25T16:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-07-25T21:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tmn.fhsu.edu\/?p=33477"},"modified":"2017-07-25T16:00:30","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T21:00:30","slug":"fhsu-grad-returns-to-his-musical-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=33477","title":{"rendered":"FHSU grad returns to his musical roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of FHSU University Marketing and Relations<\/p>\n

<\/em>By Randy Gonzales<\/p>\n

HAYS, Kan. — Professional singer and Fort Hays State University graduate Calder Craig is back in his hometown of Russell through the month of July. He is combining work with pleasure, catching up with old friends while at the same time performing as a guest artist at Russell\u2019s Ad Astra Music Festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really nice to be back among family, here in my old haunts, seeing old friends,\u201d said Craig, a 2007 graduate of Russell High School who turned 29 last week. \u201cI don\u2019t have any responsibilities here other than music. That\u2019s been a real pleasure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Craig, a 2014 Fort Hays State graduate in musical performance, went on to earn his master\u2019s degree in classical voice performance at the prestigious Manhattan School of Music in 2016. After graduation, Craig remained in New York City, where he now works as a barista to help pay the bills while also performing with an opera company, LoftOpera.<\/p>\n

Craig took voice lessons from Dr. Joseph Perniciaro, associate professor of voice at FHSU, for a couple of years while in high school. Perniciaro suggested Craig audition for scholarships and apply to Fort Hays State.<\/p>\n

\u201cFort Hays State, I felt, supported and had opportunities I would not have had at other schools because of the size of the music program,\u201d Craig said. \u201cI got a lot of special attention because the teachers weren\u2019t overwhelmed with too many students. We could perform operas that I might not have had a chance to perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cFort Hays State was the right fit for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ad Astra Music Festival began its final week with free chamber music concerts, featuring the Ad Astra string quartet. There will be a concert at noon Wednesday at the Russell Senior Citizens Center. On Friday at 1 p.m., there will be another concert at Espresso Etc. in downtown Russell.<\/p>\n

At 7:30 p.m. Saturday, the festival will close with a semi-staged performance of Handel\u2019s \u201cSamson\u201d at Trinity United Methodist Church. Admission is $10. At 10 a.m. Sunday at the Basilica of St. Fidelis in Victoria, the 2017 Young Artists will perform a \u201cJager\u201d Mass during the regular Mass that morning.<\/p>\n

Craig, who is interested in bringing classical music to those uninitiated audiences, and watching them learn to enjoy it, performed at his hometown musical festival in 2014 during its formative years. He returned this summer as a paid professional singer. Craig\u2019s goal is to perform professionally for his lone source of income. Music is his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been performing for as long as I can remember,\u201d Craig said, \u201cfrom kindergarten all the way up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Courtesy of FHSU University Marketing and Relations By Randy Gonzales HAYS, Kan. — Professional singer and Fort Hays State University graduate Calder Craig is back… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3397,3398,3400,3402,11],"tags":[11211,11212,69,106,286],"class_list":["post-33477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-fhsu-music-arts-entertainment","category-area-music","category-news","tag-ad-astra-music-festival","tag-calder-craig","tag-fhsu","tag-fort-hays-state-university","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33477\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}