Historian Stays in Touch with Musical Training
J. Michael Raley teaches medieval and early modern European history, but he also looks forward to picking up his trombone and performing in front of an audience.
Raley and guest pianist Starla Hibler will perform works by Burnet Tuthill, Robert L. Sanders, John Davison and Lars-Erik Larsson at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23 in the Remick Heritage Center.
The recital is sponsored by the Alma College Music Department. Admission is free and open to the public.
J. Michael Raley
Raley, who performs regularly with the Alma College Concert Band, teaches in the history department at Alma College. Hibler is a faculty member at East Central University in Ada, Okla.
“I continue to perform music because I enjoy it, but also because it’s a small way for me to model a liberal arts education to my students,” says Raley. “We encourage our students to get involved in the arts or athletics, do community service and many other things in addition to their academic work.”
Raley performed in Carnegie Hall as a high school student with the American Youth Performs Orchestra and played first trombone with the Chicago Civic Orchestra and Indiana University’s Philharmonic Orchestra before studying at the Institute for Advanced Musical Studies in Montreux, Switzerland.
While abroad, he performed in Germany with the orchestra of the Landestheater Schlewig-Holstein in Flensburg and the Niederrheinische Sinfoniker of Krefeld–Mönchengladbach.
Raley completed his bachelor of music degree at Belmont University in Nashville. While a trombonist with the Louisville Orchestra in Kentucky he earned the master of music degree at the University of Louisville, where he also won the university’s concerto competition.
Shifting focus, he completed doctoral studies in medieval and early modern European history at the University of Chicago in 2007. He taught history at Northeastern Illinois University and Wake Forest University in North Carolina before coming to Alma College in the fall of 2011.
Hibler has taught at East Central University since 1991 and is active nationally as a soloist, accompanist and chamber music performer. A member of the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association, College Music Society and Oklahoma Federation of Music Clubs, Hibler serves regularly as a clinician and adjudicator and was recognized as the 2009 Teacher of the Year by the Oklahoma Federation of Music Clubs.
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Posted: Mon, October 15th, 2012 at 9:44AM
