Mozart: Overture to Magic Flute ♪ Bach: Concerto for Three violins and String Orchestra ♪ Tchaikovsky: Meditation for Violin and orchestra ♪ Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor
Dr. Richard W. Fletcher is Professor Emeritus of Clarinet and Saxophone at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, where he maintained an active pedagogy and performance studio from 1982 to 2011. He holds a Doctor of Musical Arts in Clarinet Performance and Pedagogy from the University of Iowa, where he studied with the distinguished Himie Voxman. Dr. Fletcher earned his Master and Bachelor of Music degrees from Southern Illinois University and Arkansas Tech University, respectively.
An avid chamber musician, Dr. Fletcher performed as principal clarinetist of the Eau Claire Chamber Orchestra, the Wisconsin Wind Quintet, Clearly Three PianoTrio and Sonora Reed Trio. His research background includes a Visiting Fellowship at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, where he focused on traditional shakuhachi performance praxis. He has performed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the St Paul Schubert Club’s Courtroom Concerts Series, the Wisconsin Chazen Museum of Art Music Series, on Wisconsin radio and television, the Iowa Bandmasters Association, and on global conferences of the International Clarinet Association, the International Double Reed Society, the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, and the International Wood Flute Conference. In addition to past solo appearances with bands and orchestras, he now performs with ensembles across Colorado’s Front Range.
Dan Frantz founded the Greeley Chamber Orchestra in 1981 and has served as the orchestra’s conductor since that time. Prior to moving to Greeley, Mr. Frantz performed trumpet in the Brico Symphony and other groups in the Denver area. He came to Greeley in 1975 to attend the University of Northern Colorado’s School of Nursing, graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in 1979. During his undergraduate years he studied trumpet with William Pfund and Gene Aitken, and presented two performance recitals through the School of Music. Mr. Frantz was accepted as a student by the renowned conductor, Antonia Brico, in 1980, and studied conducting and music with her until her death in 1989. For more than 40 years, he has led the Greeley Chamber Orchestra and Greeley Chamber Choir in performances of a diverse listing of composers and types of music, championing the music of local composers and the less familiar works of baroque and classical masters. He has collaborated with a wide variety of local soloists and in 1993 conducted the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. He frequently serves as an adjudicator at various contests and competitions.
Mr. Frantz received his Master of Science degree in Psychiatric Nursing from the University of Colorado in 1985. He has taught in both the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine and the Graduate Program of the School of Nursing at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He was the first man to be awarded the Florence Nightingale Award for Excellence in Nursing (1993) and was selected as Honored Alumni for Humanitarian Service from his alma mater, the University of Northern Colorado (1994). Frantz was honored for his Lifetime Contribution to the Arts in Greeley by ArtsAlive! in 2005 and again in 2023 by Greeley Arts Legacy.
