Our students are engaged in a wide range of academic pursuits that include degree programs in 160 undergraduate and graduate fields delivered by 6 different colleges.
The Lecture-Concert Series serves Arkansas State University and the surrounding community by bringing leaders of diverse backgrounds and expertise, according to Dr. Ryan Sullivan, chair of the Lecture-Concert committee. All events are free and open to the public. Many of the events this year include additional campus events that serve students and community members to enhance the cultural opportunities on our campus and beyond. This year’s events will serve audiences interested in philosophy, entrepreneurship, music, racial identity, health professions, and theatre.
2025-2026 Schedule At A Glance
BrassFest: Featuring: Dr. Lucas Borges & Dr. Kenneth Steinsult (website)
Saturday, Sept 27, 2025 5:00 PM
Riceland Hall in Fowler Center
Community: Living & Singing as One Jasmine Fripp
Monday, Oct 20, 2025 7:00 PM
Museum Auditorium
“Learn how to A.C.E. the Imposter Syndrome for No Return” Monique A.J. Smith (website)
Monday, Oct 27, 2025 7:00 PM
Auditorium in Reng Student Union
The Hidden Weight of Anxiety Dr. Ajita Robinson (website)
Puerto Rican soprano Camille Ortiz has garnered international acclaim captivating audiences in opera and concert. A versatile artist, she equally thrives as a baroque specialist or with standard repertoire, all the while championing new works. Ms. Ortiz begins the 2023-2024 season as an inaugural resident artist with Seattle Opera, covering Woglinde and Freia in Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Morgana in Handel’s Alcina, as well as performing a recital in the fall. Additional season performances include a debut with Portland Baroque Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah under John Butt’s baton; a debut as the soprano soloist for Portland Chamber Orchestra’s “A Night in Old Vienna” under the direction of Yaacov Bergman; and a return to the role of Oriana in Handel’s Amadigi di Gaula with Ars Lyrica Houston.
Notable engagements include directing and performing for Opera Hispánica NY; soprano soloist with the Zipoli Ensemble NY; appearing in venues such as the Sala Manuel de Falla in Granada, Spain under the tutelage of Teresa Berganza, the Carlos Chávez Hall of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico, D.F., Avery Fischer Hall at the Lincoln Center, the Heckscher Theater at El Museo del Barrio, Steinway Hall NY, The Kaye Playhouse, the America’s Society, the Museum of the City of New York, as well as on national television broadcast network Telemundo and HBO live.
Ms. Ortiz is Assistant Professor of Voice at the University of Oregon, School of Music and Dance. She completed a D.M.A. at University of North Texas, a Master of Music degree at Manhattan School of Music, a Bachelor of Music degree at Oral Roberts University where she double-majored in voice and violin, and is a graduate of the pre-college division of the Puerto Rico Conservatory. She is the winner of the Gerda Lissner Foundation 2008 Encouragement Award and a finalist in both the Liederkranz 2009 competition, Lieder division, and the Sergei and Olga Koussevitzky 2010 Young Artists Competition. She has also served on the faculty of Florida Southwestern State College, Florida Gulf Coast University, Ave Maria University, and the Greek Opera Studio.
Dr. Bryan Keith Hotchkins is a dreamer who has spent the majority of his life searching for an answer to the question “how would it feel to be Black without limitation?” Although he has yet to experience the feeling, his imagination of what it must be like is explored in his own racial realist digital art and symbolic paintings. Hotchkins, who was born and raised in Oklahoma City, first began to question the roots of his Black identity after finding out was adopted on his 10th birthday. As a youth, Bryan attended integrated K-12 schools, but envied the all-black experiences of his parents, Eady and James, who often shared prideful stories about living in Sand Town segregated communities during the late 1950’s. In the 1990s, prior to graduating from Southern Method University, he created the Gospel Hip Hop group Divine Words, which was inspired by a strict Black Baptist Church upbringing.
As an undergraduate, he took a Black & White Race course with professor Clarence Glover, which shifted the arc of Hotchkins’ life. Glover mentored Hotchkins and encouraged him to explore what it meant to be Black while navigating racist educational systems. Shortly thereafter, Bryan pledged historically Black Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. and became president-elect of the Association of Black Students, in the same semester. These leadership roles prepared Hotchkins for the real world and would later prove instrumental to his understandings about what society requires of Black men. Following four years of college, Hotchkins earned a masters in Human Relations (University of Oklahoma, 2003) and Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Leadership and Policy (University of Utah, 2013). A technically gifted writer and skilled researcher, Hotchkins later became a professor at Texas Tech University (2016), where his research focuses on how people of African descent mitigate the racial traumas they experience while being leaders in organizations.
In 2020, after watching the murder of George Floyd, he created eight striking artistic images about how people of African descent experience life in America. This series, WITHIN, was released in 2021, in tandem with his highly insightful book My Black is Exhausted. Forever in Pursuit of a Racist-free World Where Hashtags Don’t Exist. The subsequent series, LOST in TRANSITION, includes 10 new art pieces that are included in his ALL HUMAN RIGHTS RESERVED™ tour throughout 2024-25. The tour creates pathways to healing for those who view themselves as existing in the margins of society by engaging in interactive lecture sessions where Hotchkins teaches attendees to actively engage with identity, cultural body autonomy, and race by using art. As a son of Hip Hop culture, he appreciates the value of non-confirmative expression and understands the worth of art created with intention.
Since delving into art, Hotchkins now has a broader view of the world that informs his most profound series to date: WHO WOULD YOU BE OUTSIDE of YOUR COLONIZED MIND? This is his first foray into Afrofuturism. This series offers varied visual answers to the namesake question by exploring how Black optimism looks when uninhibited, absent of the familiarities of his Oklahoma childhood where he learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre (1921) and development of up to 50 historic Black towns in Indian Territory between 1865 and 1920. Ultimately, Bryan wants his work to “empower people to find the brokenness within themselves and use it to amplify their voices one image at time. Being misunderstood is easy. Being treated badly and expected to accept it, because of it, is not. So instead, I draw to create utopia!”
Born in Kansas City, Kansas and affectionately known as a child prodigy, Isaac has always shown a great interest in music. Isaac has been composing and arranging music for the past 24 years. Isaac began studying classical piano at the early age of four. By the age of 16 Isaac was also studying classical voice. Isaac went on to further his studies of music at the University of Missouri Conservatory of Music. While attending he started arranging spirituals, chorales and setting sacred texts to music.
Isaac has traveled the United States singing, teaching music, directing choirs and serving as clinician for many international music seminars. He has recorded music for the past 17 years and with those recordings, he has performed alongside many artists such as Kirk Franklin, Richard Smallwood, Melonie Daniels, Cyrus Chestnut, James Fortune, Donald Lawrence, Bill Gaither, Kari Jobe, Vashawn Mitchell, Myron Butler, Lynda Randall, Mark Hayes and Trace Atkins. Isaac has performed in Italy, Switzerland, England, Spain, Australia, Sweden, Norway, Ireland and Germany playing to sold-out audiences conducting and teaching thousands of singers in Music workshops. Isaac is a gifted vocalist, pianist and vocal arranger often sought after for his vocal coaching, specifically for his abilities to blend genres and utilize different vocal techniques as broad as Bel Canto to speech-level singing. His original Composition "strong tower" and his setting of "the Lord's Prayer" Have been performed in over 17 different countries and been translated into numerous languages.
Isaac has the unique ability to use his knowledge of Classical music and roots of Gospel/Soul music to create refreshingly sophisticated harmonies, polyphonic rhythms, and dazzling piano accompaniments that have become his trademark sound. Isaac has recently been sought after for his original songs and compositions by contributing music to Dexter Walker and Zion Movement, Geoffrey Golden (winner of Season 7 Sunday Best), C. Ashley Wright (Hezekiah Walker) and the amazing Soprano, Callie Day (Americas Got Talent). Isaac has collaborated with a vast array of artists from many genres... Kansas City hip-hop legend, Tech N9ne, legendary Irish Choral Group, Anùna, GRAMMY-nominated Oleta Adams, and GRAMMY-winning Conspirare led by Dr. Craig Hella Johnson.
Isaac is a proud voting member of the Recording Academy (GRAMMYs) and released his most recent album with Ordained, "Amazed," in September of 2022 to critical acclaim. The album was considered for a GRAMMY Nomination. Isaac has the distinct honor of being featured providing narration for "I'm So Glad" - Kansas City and the roots of Black Gospel Music - the very first comprehensive documentary telling the history of Gospel music in Kansas City. Isaac currently serves as the Director of Music Outreach in Worship at Church of the Resurrection, the largest United Methodist Church in the United States with 6 locations and over 20,000 members.
Dr. Laura Soter is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at York University in Toronto. Before that, she was a postdoc at Duke University, and did her PhD in Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Michigan.
Their research focuses on topics relating to beliefs, mental control, and moral psychology (and the overlaps in these topics). They are broadly interested in issues at the intersection of cognitive science, philosophy of mind, ethics, and epistemology. They do both theoretical and empirical work on various topics in this space. Their current projects center around doxastic control, the moralization of mental states, and obligations to close others and the self.
Dr. Soter completed her B.A. in Philosophy and Cognitive Science at Carleton College (Minnesota). Before moving to the Midwest, she grew up in San Francisco, California, where she was blissfully unaware of winter. If they’re not doing philosophy or psychology, they’re probably playing ultimate frisbee, baking cookies, or hanging out with their covid pup, Nessie.
Leong & D'Beck Residency: Entrepreneurship in Theatre
Tuesday, Nov 19, 2024 7:00 PM
Simpson Theatre in Fowler Center
Patti and David’s combined experience includes working in the entertainment industry with some of the biggest names in show business including Liza Minelli, Twiggy, Mickey Rooney, Chubby Checker, Brooke Shields, Reba McEntire, Daniel Craig, Christopher Plummer, Kathleen Turner, Sigourney Weaver, Sam Rockwell, and Don Cheadle.
Their experience includes over 40 years teaching, directing, choreographing and performing in nearly every venue imaginable including Broadway, Hollywood, television, Las Vegas and NYC nightclubs, cruise ships, resorts, retirement communities, colleges and universities, and performing arts and convention centers.
Both Patti and David have also held faculty positions at some of the most prestigious colleges and universities including The Juilliard School, New York University, Brandeis University, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Patti graduated from NYU with a Masters in Performance and David holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the University of North Carolina Greensboro.
Dr. Jeffrrey Carroll is an Assistant Professor in the John Chambers College of Business and Economics at West Virginia University, where he is part of the Kendrick Center for an Ethical Economy. Before that, he was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University where he regularly taught courses in the Philosophy, Politics, Economics, and Law (PPEL) program.
Dr. Carroll completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Virginia, where he was the Hilliard Family Jefferson Fellow. He received a Bachelor of Arts from The Ohio State University in Philosophy and Political Science and a Master of Arts in Philosophy from Georgia State University.
His research interests are in political and social philosophy and topics at the intersection of philosophy, politics, and economics (PPE). His written work appears in The Journal of Politics, Utilitas, Journal of Business Ethics, Social Theory and Practice, Inquiry, Res Publica, Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, Erasmus Journal of Philosophy and Economics, The Independent Review, and the HEC Forum.
Woodwind Extravaganza: Featuring Nanci Belmont & Eric Mandat
Saturday, Feb 28, 2026 5:00 PM
Recital Hall in Fine Arts Center
A dynamic performer and educator, bassoonist Nanci Belmont has been praised as “outstanding” by New York Classical Review. Trained and experienced in teaching artistry and community engagement, Nanci aims to cultivate meaningful relationships and relevant musical experiences through performance. She is the Second Prize winner of the 2016 Fernand Gillet-Hugo Fox Competition of the International Double Reed Society and is a Performing Artist for Leitzinger Bassoons. Nanci has appeared as a concerto soloist in New York City on multiple occasions, including performances of the Strauss Duett Concertino for Clarinet and Bassoon and the Gubaidulina Concerto for Bassoon and Low Strings. A proponent for the music of our time, Nanci is also active in the performance and commissioning of new works for bassoon. Recent solo engagements include guest artist recitals at Montclair State University, University of Memphis, and performances for the Meg Quigley Virtual Bassoon Symposium and multiple International Double Reed Society Conferences.
Chamber music is an integral part of Nanci’s career, and she is frequently invited to collaborate at chamber music festivals and series throughout the United States. She is a member of The City of Tomorrow, a wind quintet dedicated to the performance and expansion of contemporary repertoire. The City of Tomorrow recently released their second album Blow on New Focus Recordings, featuring works by Franco Donatoni, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Hannah Lash. From 2012-2014 Nanci was the bassoonist with Ensemble Connect (formerly Ensemble ACJW)– a Program of Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, and the Weil Music Institute. In other contemporary chamber music ventures, Nanci frequently collaborates with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Argento Chamber Ensemble, and Talea Ensemble.
As an orchestral musician, Nanci has performed with many of the major ensembles in New York City, including the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, American Symphony Orchestra, and New York City Ballet Orchestra. Additionally, she has worked with the Charleston, Princeton, and Tallahassee Symphony Orchestras. Memorable international experiences include performances and recording of Peter Grimes in the United Kingdom for the Benjamin Britten Centennial as a part of the Britten Pears Festival, and a European tour with Ensemble intercontemporain in collaboration with the Lucerne Festival.
In her role as an educator, Nanci strives to cultivate curious, lifelong learners in music. She was recently appointed as Assistant Professor of Bassoon at Louisiana State University, and previously served on faculty at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA. Nanci has has presented master classes at a variety of colleges and universities across the country, and spends part of her summer on faculty at the Trentino Music Festival Chamber Music & Orchestral Studio in Italy.
Nanci received a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, a Master of Music degree from Manhattan School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Florida State University. Her primary bassoon teachers include Jeff Keesecker and Frank Morelli.
Eric Mandat
For more than 40 years, Eric Mandat has been at the forefront of clarinet extended performance techniques exploration, particularly multiphonics, microtones, and timbral modulations. He tours regularly as a concert soloist, premiering and performing his works throughout the world. For 15 seasons he was a member of the Chicago Symphony's MusicNOW ensemble, and was a member of the eclectic improvising ensemble Tone Road Ramblers for nearly 30 years. He has received multiple Illinois Arts Council Artist Fellowships for Composition. In 1999 he was honored with the Southern Illinois University Outstanding Scholar Award, the university’s highest honor for research/creative work.
His ongoing personal artistic mission is to continue exploring the myriad sonic possibilities of the clarinet, both in an acoustic context and with interactive technologies. His mission as a performing artist is to invite listeners to explore the deep and delicate inner worlds of self through their experiences of the micro galaxies of clarinet multiphonics and subtle timbral and pitch modulations in my compositions and improvisational commentaries. His work is largely inspired by the relationships between vast external universes and the micro worlds of subatomic interactions and processes. This dichotomous relationship serves as a context for the expression of my personal intimate feelings and experiences as I interact with the world around me. Speaking through his traditional acoustic instrument in so many non-traditional ways, he invite audiences to travel through similar uncharted territories within themselves.
