YouTube Recording – You will be sent a link to a private playlist containing all 5 sessions from Fall 2021 within 48 hours during standard office hours.

What is it that makes the music of Mozart so different from the Music of Prokofiev?  A lot of it has to do with the times in which they composed and the influences they felt in their own lives.  In this course Don Dagenais, one of our regular SPARK instructors, will explore a series of great composers, discussing their times and lives and playing excerpts from some of their finest music.  Among the composers to be covered in the course  are Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Sait-Saens, Tchaikovsky, Rosini, Rachmaninoff and Gershwin.  We will cover 4 composers in each class.

Class fee: $30

Instructor:  Don Dagenais is a longtime classical music and opera aficionado.  He has served on the boards of many local music organizations and has been president of most of them, including the Lyric Opera, Summerfest, Kansas City Symphony Alliance, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra and UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance. He is also on the board of an opera training program in Arkansas.  He has written several books of history about local music groups, including a book celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Lyric opera last year. He has served as an unpaid consultant to performing arts groups around the country and was president of Opera Volunteers International.  For over ten years he has chaired the Lyric Opera Guild opera travel program.  He is semi-retired as a real estate attorney from Lathrop Gage and lives in Kansas City with his wife Patricia, also a classical music fan.  They have two grown daughters and two grandchildren.