A Stage for Louisiana’s Next Generation of Artists

Nearly 180 times each year, the lights will come up at LSU’s John G. Turner & Hango G. Fischer Recital Hall for a student performance. That number nearly doubles if you’re counting faculty and visiting artist performances. 

For the students taking the stage, those performances are milestones in their education, turning hours of private practice, rehearsal, and coaching into a public expression of what they have learned. For faculty, the hall becomes a classroom where technique, interpretation, and stage presence come together in real time. For audiences, it offers a window into the talent being developed at LSU and the role that talent will play in the state’s cultural canvas. 

For Nicholas Dieux, the experience is personal. As a graduate student in the College of Music & Dramatic Arts and a recipient of the Turner-Fischer Endowed Scholarship for Opera, he is learning what it means to translate technical training, study, and emotion into performance. 

“Opera is everything and anything you want it to be,” Nicholas said. “In, say, the ‘beginnings’ of music, you had the Greeks that believed music could change your ways of thinking. It could help you make better decisions, and it could also create anarchy based on whatever story was being told. 

“I had my own small understanding of what the art form was, and the longer you stay in it, with time, growth is inevitable. Being in an institution like LSU, you can really dive into studying all facets of classical music, and as you’re learning opera, you’re learning about art song and you’re learning about language and linguistics, and then you’re learning about sound frequencies and harmonics.”

That kind of education asks students to move constantly between the granular and the expansive: the placement of a breath, the shape of a phrase, the study of a language, the responsibility of holding an audience’s attention. It also depends on spaces that can carry the full range of that work. 

The renovation of the John G. Turner & Hango G. Fischer Recital Hall was designed with that full experience in mind. Enhanced acoustics, updated seating, modernized technology and a new recording studio give students and faculty a setting that reflects the caliber of the work taking place there, from daily preparation to performances that reach audiences beyond campus. 

“The performances have always been there, but now we have a space that is really complimentary towards it.”

The renewed hall also gives students a place to practice the demands of performance before they enter professional spaces of their own. In that way, the recital hall is both a training ground and a point of connection, linking the discipline developed on campus to the arts organizations, schools, stages, and audiences that shape Louisiana’s creative landscape.

“Arts organizations in our community are filled with graduates from the College of Music & Dramatic Arts, and the investment that people have made in the college is what helps those people get out there,” said Eric Lau, College of Music & Dramatic Arts dean. “And then they become part of this community, and when they contribute to it through their artistic work for their entire career, it’s just enriching the landscape of Louisiana.”  

Donors are a vital part of that continuum. Investments like John Turner and Hango Fischer’s strengthen the spaces where students learn and the scholarships that make it possible for students like Nicholas to keep pursuing the work.  

“They’re just kind people, and they understand what it means to be a musician,” Nicholas said of Turner and Fischer. “They have a real appreciation for opera and classical music, and I really can't think of someone better than that. They’re the kind people who just want to see the people they invest in thrive.”