(classical uplifting music) - [Narrator] Tonight on "Showcase with Barbara Kellar," Dean of the University of Cincinnati's College Conservatory of Music, Peter Jutras.

Stay tuned.

"Showcase" starts right now.

(classical uplifting music continues) (uplifting classical music) - Hi, I'm Barbara Kellar.

Welcome to "Showcase."

We have a wonderful guest today that we wanna introduce to you from CCM, the new Dean at CCM, and I ask him how long you've been there, a year and a half, which is sort of new, but new to our viewers.

- Yes.

- [Barbara] So, welcome.

- Thank you.

- Welcome to Cincinnati.

We wanna hear all about you.

So are you ready to tell us your background, your hopes, your dreams?

- Of course, I am.

- All those good, good things.

- Okay.

Tell us first your background, where from once you came.

- Sure.

So I grew up in upstate New York, kind of in the Southern Adirondacks, and I've been to several music schools.

I have degrees in music education and piano pedagogy, which is training piano teachers in the art of teaching, essentially teaching teachers how to teach.

I've spent time running a private piano studio, teaching piano, and piano pedagogy at the collegiate level.

I was editor of a magazine for pianists and piano teachers for many years.

- Yeah.

- And along the way I joined the faculty at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, where I had been for 18 years.

- Wow.

- And during my time there on the faculty, someone convinced me to try my hand at administration, and I was an associate director of the school, and then eventually director of the School of Music there.

- Yeah.

- And that was my most recent stop before coming to CCM.

- To CCM.

- Yes.

- How did you make yourself known?

I mean, how did you learn about CCM or did you already have known all about the school?

- So, CCM'S always been on my radar as a great school of music.

You know, it's a school I looked at back when I was applying to music schools as a student many years ago.

- So when the job opening came up, you know, I knew it was a great school and a great opportunity.

So I threw my hat in the ring.

- Yeah, and it was successful.

- It was successful.

Are you a concert pianist?

- No.

(laughs) - No.

But you must be a pianist.

- I am a pianist.

I jokingly say at times I used to be a pianist.

- It's hard to practice enough to stay in shape with a job like this.

- Yeah, that's true.

- But I do enjoy playing when I can.

- You have to play every day.

- And I also enjoy teaching.

Teaching has always been near and dear to my heart.

- So, yeah.

So, tell just tell our audience, in general, what are your duties as the dean?

- Sure.

So I think a lot of our audience knows, but CCM is a big and complex place dedicated to not just music, which is in its name, but the performing arts theater, and dance, and media production, and the academics that go behind that, and the technical side of theater production.

So, somehow somebody decided that I should be in charge of all of that.

- Yes.

- Trying to steer this ship.

But really, I feel like my goal is to help our students and help set them up for success to make sure that they're getting what they need to succeed as artists and go forth in the world.

And it's managing the academics and the operations, and the community connections, and all of those things to make the school successful.

- Yeah.

Do you think that most of your students expect to make a living doing what they're studying?

- I do, yeah.

And CCM is a very highly ranked, you know, nationally and internationally prominent school.

So we attract really good students and they come hoping to land those jobs.

And, as you know, I mean, the arts is a very competitive marketplace.

- It's not easy.

- That's why, that's why I was asking.

- And I'm proud to say that lots of our students do land those top jobs.

I mean, our students regularly land roles on Broadway, and roles with major orchestras, and in the media industry, and those kinds of things.

- Yeah.

- But I also think it's part of my responsibility and our responsibility to train them with skills that are useful when they don't land those top jobs.

Because there are a lot of jobs in the arts that aren't the top performing slots.

You know, there's a lot to be done to support the teaching, the administration, you know, the- - Well look at you.

- Sure, yeah.

- You're a great example.

- Yeah.

And so we wanna make sure that, that even though our students are aspiring to perform, a lot of them, that they also have skills that will help them succeed and stay in the field of the arts.

- Yeah.

I think the toughest one I'm most familiar with the musical theater.

- [Peter] Sure.

- And I think that's the toughest one to make a living.

And they all go to New York and, you know, the CCM and I've gone with them, you know, for their showcases and they all wanna be successful, but they're, they need a second occupation.

- And they do, also, a lot of them are successful.

I mean, it's, one of the most fun things for me is, has been going to New York a couple of times and, you can pick almost any Broadway show, and there's somebody and there's somebody from CCM involved, which is really exciting.

- Yeah.

My friend, Lee Roy Reams, who was a very famous Broadway star who started out before CCM had a musical theater program.

But he, and he now directs a lot of shows, and he always gives the CCM kids a little extra in hiring.

- Yeah, I've actually met Lee Roy.

- Oh, have you?

Okay.

- It's been a pleasure to get to know him.

- Yeah.

- That's another thing I've been very impressed with as I kind of learn the landscape.

- Like, CCM alumni kind of stick together.

- Yes, they do.

- And work together.

And I've talked to our alumni in New York, they try to hire each other.

And because they know the quality is gonna be there.

- Exactly.

And you do you know Pam Meyers?

- Yes.

I've met Pam.

- Okay, well see those, those success stories could inspire the kids big time.

And I know, I know Leroy comes once in a blue moon to do a class or something.

- He does, yeah.

- With the kids.

- Yeah.

- And we have, so just like, there's often a CMR in a Broadway production that you might go see.

They're often in the national tours that come through to the Aronoff Center.

And one of the things that's a lot of fun is when those folks do come through, we have them come talk to our students.

just about what, what life is like on the road, what the audition experience was like, you know, kind of tips and tricks.

And I think that's really valuable for our students to have those connections.

- Lee Roy was a, had, well, in the college, but in the producers when they came, he had the big role.

And I think that, you know, when you know someone and it's a Broadway hit, it's so much fun to see them perform and see them be successful.

And there's so many names we could drop, but I think CCM is very proud of what they do.

And I'm sure they cultivate their alumni so that they wanna come back and they wanna help kids in any way they can.

- Yeah.

get jobs 'cause it is the toughest, you know, you have the reputation around the world.

I mean, CCM.

- [Peter] Yes.

- And especially in the stringed instruments.

You have violin.

Oh, violin.

But piano is great.

And you have Polina Bespalko in the piano department, who is a brilliant concert pianist and a fabulous teacher.

What are your plans?

Do you have any plans for something new, exciting?

Or what do you look to for the future?

- Sure.

Well, there's a lot of greatness happening at CCM and we wanna maintain that.

We wanna maintain excellence.

I mean, it starts with that, but one, you know, one of the things we're looking at is trying to expand our connection outside CCM.

- Right.

- And one of the things that was appealing to me is a newcomer to Cincinnati is the strength of the art scene here in Cincinnati.

- Yeah.

- You have such a strong symphony and the Cincinnati Ballet, Cincinnati Opera, the theaters Playhouse, Shakespeare Ensemble, the No, the Carnegie, like, there's so much happening here, and there are often CCM students involved.

We want to kind of strengthen those relationships to give more opportunities off campus for our students.

And to also strengthen our, our mutual support of the arts here in Cincinnati.

And then expanding those connections to industry across the country, you know?

What are our media students doing in LA, and what are our music students doing in orchestras and ensembles around the world?

To our earlier point about, you know, giving students a range of skills.

- Right.

- We're trying to expand some connections on campus so our students are able to do more with the College of Medicine and the College of Law, and the College of Business.

And again, there's so many opportunities in the arts, they can intersect with so many walks of life.

So we're looking at programs with some of those colleges where our students can get some training and cross pollination in different kinds of skills.

Those are a couple of things.

We're always invested in trying to take care of our students, you know, their health.

has become more and more of a concern, the way the world is evolving.

So we've got new initiatives in that space as well.

- Yeah.

Well, with performers, there's very specific, the singers, their voice and taking care of your voice is because you can destroy your voice very, very, very quickly.

So, knowing all of those things and the dancers and how to take care of their bodies, I mean, it's not just the performance, it's what you have to do in order to make the performance.

I've gone to some of the recitals and they're, it's very, very exciting.

Do lots of your kids, for instance, the opera, do they could, could they get a rule, get rules maybe in the chorus to start or, what, how's that work?

- And since you mentioned it, I mean, opera is one of our highly successful programs as well, so we have lots of CCM alums working at the MET right now, - [Barbara] Really?

- On their roster of artists, or in the chorus.

The Met does a competition every year for kind of the best young singers.

And in the last version, CCM had one quarter of the semi-finalists - Wow.

- in that competition.

- Wow.

- And one of our students was one of the prize winners.

- There's not a single winner.

There's a handful of prize winners, but one of the CCM students won that.

So, yes.

If they don't get a role at the Met, there are lots of other opportunities at other opera companies.

And like in the chorus, as you say, and kind of working, working your way up.

- At the age they graduate, which is, would be about 18.

Would a voice be fully developed at that age?

- Usually not for opera.

- I don't think.

- That's something that happens much later.

So most of our serious opera students are in the graduate space, and even kind of the advanced graduate space where they've had a little more time for things to mature.

Although, I will say one of the things that's very unique to CCM, we're one of the only places in the country to do an undergraduate opera every year.

- We do perform, we do have a production for the under undergrads to help them develop.

- Yeah, and that's always successful, I bet.

- Oh, it's wonderful.

We have it coming up, so.

- Yeah.

Well, I think people, it's interesting, when you read Francis as a playbill or the opera program, when the people, the stars give their bio, there's very small, but they credit CCM.

- [Peter] Yes.

- And we love that because the world needs to know what kind of the school we have here.

- Yes.

- What does talking about their voices and training them, do they, after they graduate, they're not fully developed?

What do they do in the interim?

Do they have private coaches - Most singers will continue to work with coaches or teachers, even professionals do that regularly.

- They do.

- So that's not unusual.

I mean, you know, music, the performance as a craft, you work on your entire life.

You never quite feel like it's finished, so there's always things to do.

- What's your favorite part?

Is it piano?

Because you're, what do you enjoy the most if you're allowed to have choices?

- I don't know if I'm allowed to pick a favorite.

- You're allowed, this is a, no one will know.

This is our secret.

(laughs) - No, I will say, and I'm not trying to dodge the question, like, just seeing all of it.

And I guess one thing that's really special for me at CCM is how it all comes together.

So my background was at a music school before.

And now I'm at a school where it's music and theater and dance and media.

And we're doing more and more productions where all of those departments intersect and work together.

And I, that's really exciting for me.

- Yeah, that would be exciting.

- You know, so for example, this season our opera and voice is combining with musical theater and our top orchestra, and of course our theater production for "Sweeney Todd."

And, you know, it's something CCM has done a little bit of in the past, but we're looking to do more of it where, you know, we can kind of take advantage of this structure where there's so many things happening in the arts that, that can work together.

- "Sweeney Todd," that's gonna be a tough one.

Mrs.

Lovett is.

Do you know, Pam Myers was the best, Mrs.

Lovett was she I've ever seen?

- Yes, okay.

- Yeah, she did "Sweeney Todd."

She was fantastic.

- [Peter] Yeah.

- But you want, you, this'll be students, right?

- Yes.

And we're very excited about it.

And we're also excited about the students that do all the backstage, the technical things, you know, making the barber chair work.

- Of course, of course.

- And all the fun stuff that happens with that.

- Do you have a family here?

- Sort of.

So my wife and I have two sons who are grown, and they're not living here right now.

One is in LA, he works in aerospace engineering.

- Oh.

But he is a good pianist.

- Yeah.

Actually, so both of our sons did a lot of violin.

My wife is a violinist, my wife Kristen.

- Okay.

- And piano.

And they also did brass instruments.

- Oh, great.

- So they did a lot of music and now they're both engineers.

- Okay.

- But can you have family concerts?

- We could if we practiced more.

- Yeah.

- And it's something we did do in the past.

We used to play together at holiday times.

And things like that, then our, I'm sure you know, our symphony conductor was from Christian.

He was from a family of oh 8, 9, 10 in Romania.

And they all had to play a musical instrument and they had concerts.

- Yeah.

- Just the family.

I think that's just fabulous.

He said every, every kid had to have had to be a musician, and maybe not all as successful as he is.

- Well, obviously I'm biased, but I think some kind of experience in playing an instrument, singing, dancing, acting is really valuable to every child and every person.

- The discipline of it.

- Yes.

- And the expression, and, you know, the creativity, and the problem solving.

I mean, I really think it's valuable for everyone.

- Did they go to engineering schools?

- They did, yes.

- [Barbara] Oh, yeah.

- And that was something they wanted to do, you know?

- [Barbara] Yeah.

- And they, but we like to think that their musical training had something to do with their success.

- My granddaughter still has, she's in New York, but she still has her voice coach, so that she doesn't let that, she's working in a different, she's gonna be a lawyer, but she doesn't wanna lose her voice.

She still has her CCM voice coach.

That you probably, most of your faculty probably coach privately, don't they?

- A lot of them do.

Yes, that's, that's very, very common.

Whether it's pre-college children who are preparing, you know and want to audition, or sometimes adult students, like you mentioned.

- Well, you have that Saturday class from musical theater where the kids, you know, do little shows and learn stage concepts.

And, yeah.

- And that to me, that's another exciting aspect of CCM, So we have this whole division called CCM Prep, or CCM Preparatory.

I think a lot of people think about the classes for kids with CCM Prep, but it's for anyone of all ages.

And, you know, if you wanted to start oboe lessons.

- That's right!

- Or if you wanted to, you know, and it is not just music, it's acting and dance, and the other thing.

- Do you have a lot of international students?

- We do.

I actually checked before we came.

We have students from 41 different countries right now.

- [Barbara] Wow.

- And it's a big part of our population, particularly at the graduate level.

So students do come from all over the world to study with our faculty.

- How do you recruit from Timbuktu?

(laughs) - That's a great question.

So, you know, we've talked a lot about how talented the students are.

The faculty are amazing.

You know, they all have international profiles, they're known, they, you know, they've been out there performing, doing their careers.

So they frequently travel to other countries.

They're either invited to perform or teach.

And they're, you know, just by virtue of how good they are, people see them teach, see them perform, and think, I want to go study with that person.

- Yeah.

- You know, that's on my list.

So a lot of it happens with these one-to-one relationships that our faculty build as they go out in the world.

- That's Polina Bespalko, who's on your faculty, is Russian.

And she knows people all over the world.

And she has provided me with fabulous guests who are here from various other places, including Russia.

So she just an incredibly valuable asset to have somebody who knows people all over the world.

And it's true of the ballet artistic director, Cervilio.

He's Cuban and he knows everybody.

And Evans Mirageas is an American, but he has his tentacles all over the world.

And those connections make a huge difference.

- [Peter] They do.

- And do you give your foreign students some sort of scholarship advantage?

Or are they the money maker?

(both laughing) Are they, yeah, we have to remember, we need to.

- We do.

But you know, kind of similar to college athletics, you know, we're looking for the best students.

So, we do a lot of recruiting and we offer a lot of scholarships to the best students, you know, to attract them to come here.

So a lot of our foreign students are graduate students and a lot of them get teaching assistantships, which help pay an intern, then they do some teaching or service for the school.

But it's a mix, you know?

- So do you have any plans that you wanna reveal to us for something in the future or that we might not already know about?

- I mean, I, like I said, we're working on additional programs for our students.

And, you know, I, it, it's not a done deal yet, but we've made some really good progress on adding a music therapy program to CCM, which is part of working with the College of Medicine and working in that field.

And, you know, we're a couple years away from opening the doors to that but we're well down the tracks towards establishing that.

- I know, Dr.

John too.

- Yes.

Who has been a guest of mine several times.

He has ALS, and he asked me if he could do a show about ALS, and what you do when you have a death sentence.

So he, and he brought his doctor, and we, it's been shown, so if our viewers wanna access that, you can go to ctconnect.org.

But he's one of the people who first started about, 'cause I had a show with Peter Landgren and John too, about music therapy.

And they were talking about it then, and that was several years ago.

- Yeah.

This isn't a new idea.

This is something we've been thinking about for a while, but we're making good progress.

- Now, and there's more and more research coming out about the power of music and therapeutic settings and not just music, but the other arts as well, and what it can mean to people and how it can help people.

- And also with dementia.

Apparently music, even people with a very serious problems of dementia can't react to music.

And that needs to be studied, and it, you know, help, if that can help people, what a wonderful thing.

Are you trying to get an extra program where students can- - The dream is to launch an undergraduate degree with a major in music therapy.

And what that would do is, when you earn that degree, you would also get licensed to practice as a musical therapist.

- Therapist.

- In a clinical setting.

That's a job field that's growing.

There's a lot of demand for music therapists.

So, again, we see that as a, not just a good opportunity for our students, but a way to help the world with what we do.

But that's one thing we're working on.

And like I said, expanding our connections is also a big thing.

You know, University of Cincinnati is very proud of being the birthplace of co-op and education, and we'd like to get more involved with that at CCM and have more opportunities for our students to do things like that.

And they already do a lot of practical, real world things in their education.

They do, right?

They're performing and they're doing shows and all of the things, but connecting off campus, I think, and giving them more of those opportunities is valuable.

- I had forgotten that UC was the, I'm sorry, I can't remember what you call it, where you work for six weeks or whatever.

- Co-op.

- [Barbara] Co-op, right, yeah.

- UC is the first- - First co-op, yeah.

First institution to have co-op be part of the curriculum, you know, a long time ago.

- This has been really interesting.

I love hearing about CCM.

It's one of the things we're so proud of here in Cincinnati, and you know, you're doing a great job to get those kids to practice.

- Yes.

Well, thank you.

It's an honor to be a part of such a great institution and it's exciting to be here in Cincinnati, and thank you for having me.

- You're welcome.

You're welcome.

I hope that if you get that therapy program started, come back and talk to us about it.

- Absolutely.

Yes.

- Because that would be something people would want hear about.

- That would be great.

Good luck for the future.

- Thank you so much.

- Okay.

Go, Bearcats.

- Yes, go Bearcats.

(inspiring music) - [Narrator] Join us next week for another episode of "Showcase with Barbara Kellar," right here on CET.

(inspiring music continues)