Randolph sets sights on senior recital

Senior piano performance major Velvet Randolph is a non-traditional student.

"You don't have to tell my age, but I have four children," she said. "Two of them are in college."

As part of the curriculum for music majors, she has to hold a piano recital for the public to attend. Her senior piano recital is at 7 p.m. on Tuesday in Corley Auditorium. She is as excited as she is nervous.

"To memorize things at my age is a little bit scary," Randolph said.

There is an hour of music for her to memorize and perform of varying styles and tempos.

"There are five selections and a lot of them are a couple of them are really slow, poetic sounding," Randolph said. "A lot of slow interpretive type things and then another one is kind of just fun, so there are a variety of sounds in there too.

"I think what I like about them is they would be what we call character pieces, where when you listen to the pieces you can hear what the name is describing."

The varying styles include Beethoven and Schumann, which have complex, contrasting styles.

"You can kind of hear a story line to it like for example one is called ‘The Pleading Child' that starts out louder and gets softer and softer towards the end," Randolph said. "Each phrase repeats itself and gets softer over and over and finally they fall asleep at the end."

Randolph decided when her children were born that she would become a stay at home mom, but has decided to go to college with the support of her husband.

"I didn't really have the opportunity at the time to go to school," she said. "The opportunity came up and all the finances were provided for and my husband encouraged me to do something that I love so that's why this and why now."