On June 22nd of this year, the Albion HS Alumni Foundation sponsored a very special concert at the Presbyterian Church – Steven Olick IV (AHS Class of 2010) performed selections from art song and opera in an effort to raise funds for a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel to Italy to study opera with masters of this amazing art form. Our community came together in support and Steven did, in deed, make the trip to Italy. This is a follow up to give Steven a chance to let us all know how it went for him.
To read previous articles about Steven and his concert, click these links:
Message from Steven Olick IV:
“My trip to Italy was just amazing. Aside from the musical aspect, it was very eye-opening to see a completely different culture. I feel that no one can claim to truly understand the world around them until they’ve travelled the world, and I‘m over-joyed that my community was willing to help me begin that journey.
I was mostly stationed in a small town called Sant’ Angelo in Vado, however, we travelled to some neighboring towns for performances. We visited Urbino, Urbania, and Pesaro. Pesaro was the home-town of famous opera composer Gioacchino Rossini. We performed 3 concerts and then we had our final scenes program in Sant’ Angelo, which was awesome because they would announce the performance every few hours during the day of the performance all throughout the town on a loudspeaker. At the end of the scenes program on the final night, the quartet I was singing in was asked to be the finale scene. The most amazing feeling was not only receiving a standing ovation for this, but also being asked by the natives to perform an encore!
Altogether, my favorite part of the trip was definitely learning some of the language. At night, the entire town (young and old, literally everyone) was out on the streets as if there was always a party going on. The natives were all so friendly, and looked forward to trying to speak with us, because we could help them with their English, while they helped us with our Italian. It’s just almost unreal to communicate with people in a different language in their own land.
I would like to thank Mr. Nesbitt and Mr. Simboli for organizing everything for me that made it monetarily possible for me to attend this program. I would also like to thank the Alumni Foundation for their unwavering support since the moment I graduated.
Here are some photos!”
“This is a photo taken after our second concert in Sant’ Angelo in Vado and includes all the students in the program, as well as the accompanists.”
“And this is a picture of Myself, Romania, the local café owner (we were there everyday), and a friend of mine that went to the program with me, Michael Hawk.”
How exciting! The Albion HS Alumni Foundation is very proud of Steven and of being a part of his incredible experience! We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.
Posted by Kim Wright Pritt
Message and Photos provided by Steven Olick IV
