Michigan State University is paying tribute this weekend to two of its biggest names.
In the 1970s, Clifton Wharton Jr, became MSU’s first African American president.
He and his wife Dolores were big supporters of the arts, and MSU’s performing arts center is named in their honor.
Clifton died last November at the age of 98, and Dolores died at age 97 this summer.
A free concert at the Wharton Center’s Great Hall is being held in their honor Sunday.
The Wharton Center’s Executive Director Eric Olmscheid, says he feels fortunate to have had the chance to get acquainted with the Whartons in his time running the center since 2022.
He says when Clifton Wharton died last year, he told Mrs. Wharton he wanted to stage a tribute.
“She started talking to me about that concert in concept, and we chose the date of September 14 because it’s the day after Dr. Wharton’s 99th birthday,” he explained.
“Then, unfortunately, she passed away in the meantime, and so we took this opportunity to pivot the concert to be really a tribute in honor to both of them.”
Adding her tastes to the planning process has resulted in an eclectic program.
Performers include Norm Lewis, the first Black performer to star as the Phantom in "The Phantom of the Opera" on Broadway, jazz music from the Aaron Diehl Trio, dancers performing a piece choreographed by Jessica Lang and classical music from the MSU Symphony Orchestra.
Octavio Más-Arocas directs the MSU Orchestra. He, too, had communicated with Dolores Wharton about the program.
Those conversations led him to feature Aaron Copland’s "Fanfare for the Common Man."
“This celebrates humanity and the nature of human beings and also celebrates this man and what he did,” Más-Arocas said. "I think it’s just very fitting, starting the program with that.”
MSU jazz vocal professor Carmen Bradford has sung for Count Basie, a long-running jazz orchestra. For this performance, she will sing George Gershwin music with MSU musicians.
Más-Arocas has also chosen the third movement of the violin concerto by Jean Sibelius and the organ symphony by Camille Saint-Saëns, which he described as “a majestic symphony that ends in this magnificent way, with these big chords with the organ, which is well known as the king of the instruments.”
In all, the concert will include not only professional musicians and MSU College of Music faculty members but student performers as well.
Eric Olmscheid says he’s proud of the variety of artistic expression that has been assembled for this special program honoring the Whartons.
“It brings together their favorite art forms, all in one concert, from classical music, to dance, to jazz, to Broadway,” Olmscheid said.
“We’re thrilled to have this pastiche of artists that will honor and remember both of them in a tribute that is fitting for royalty.”
The concert is free to attend, but tickets are required.
It will take in the Great Hall of the Wharton Center on Sunday, starting at 3 p.m.
The Wharton Center is a financial supporter of WKAR.
