Brontë sisters project brings artist and Concordia alumna back to campus
When Dr. Vicki Fingalson returns to Concordia College this month, she’ll bring more than a performance. She’ll showcase a piece of work that brings her career, and her connection to Concordia, full circle.
Fingalson ’94, a professor of voice and director of opera at the University of Wisconsin-Superior, will bring “The Brontë Sisters: Retrospection” to campus for a performance at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 22, in Christiansen Recital Hall, Hvidsten Hall of Music.
The art song play, written by Fingalson with music by composer Wendy Durrwachter, explores the lives of authors and poets Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë.
Fingalson’s work follows pivotal moments in the sisters’ lives from 1820 to 1849. While their famous novels are referenced, the focus is on the women themselves and the experiences that shaped them as writers.
“The thing that has inspired me most as I’ve studied, drawn, taught, and performed each of them is their ability to persevere in a society that saw them as only having value as a wife, mother, or teacher,” Fingalson said. “They suffered a lot of rejection, disappointment, and loss along the way, but they persisted.”
Fingalson hopes people leave the show curious and inspired.
“That is what I hope audiences will walk away with, the desire to learn more about these amazing women,” she said.
The Concordia performance will also give current students an opportunity to work directly with the artists. Fingalson and Durrwachter will spend five days on campus working with two Concordia students, Tabitha Poppe, a senior music education major, and Evelyn Gould, a junior vocal performance major. The students will perform the roles of Emily and Anne alongside Fingalson as Charlotte.
Fingalson will also meet with students in Dr. Amy Watkin’s English class, musical composition students, and Dr. Anne Jennifer Nash’s vocal literature class to discuss aspects of the work and its creative process.
Concordia voice professor Dr. Holly Janz, who helped bring the project to campus, said the residency gives Concordia students a valuable opportunity to see what a creative career can look like beyond the classroom.
“It’s difficult sometimes to imagine what does a life look like as a composer or what does a life look like as a performer?” Janz said. “These careers don’t have clearly laid out paths that are predictable. To give students, at this point in their development, an idea of what could be possible and maybe broaden their ideas about what could be in their future, I think will be really great.”
For Fingalson, the residency is particularly meaningful because Concordia has been part of nearly every stage of her professional development. She learned to sing at Concordia as a student, later returned to teach voice from 1998 to 2004, and developed her early professional performance career in Fargo-Moorhead.
“When I think about it too much, my eyes get a little glassy,” Fingalson said of returning to campus.
She sees the residency as more than just a homecoming.
“It feels both like a full-circle moment and the culmination of what I’ve spent my life doing — performing, teaching, creating, directing,” she said. “Those seeds were all planted at Concordia.”