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Three seniors receive Sudler Prize in the Arts

By Katie Kelly

Three MSU students are recipients of an award recognizing their achievements in the arts.
John McLain Pray, Robert Parks and Margaret McCall are recipients of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts for 2008. All three will graduate in May.

The Sudler Prize is awarded annually to top college seniors from across the country who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in an area of the performing and creative arts. Students are recommended for the award by faculty members from their home institutions.

Pray will graduate with a degree in music performance. He has played the tuba in the MSU orchestras and the university bands since 2004. He has won positions playing with several highly competitive summer music festivals. Pray was named as one of five winners of the annual MSU Honors Concert and was featured as a soloist.

In addition, he has served as a teacher for high school and junior high school brass students. Since 2007, he has been a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and acts as a mentor to students in the DSO’s younger training orchestras.
Parks, a member of the MSU Opera Theatre, will graduate with a degree in music education. Parks performed the baritone lead role in five MSU opera productions, including the title character in Mozart’s “Don Giovanni.” Selected by the world tour group of Riverdance, Parks performed as the featured baritone soloist for six weeks in Asia.

He also served as a member of the first MSU-China exchange concerts that promoted not only the exchange of music with China, but also cultural and societal values. For the past semester, Parks has served as a student teacher at Brighton High School in Brighton.

A theater major, McCall has worked as a skilled dramaturge, acting as a consultant to interpret and uphold the authenticity of each production. She has worked as a stage manager for numerous MSU productions and throughout the Lansing theater community. McCall established the first dramaturge position at the Peppermint Creek Theatre Company in East Lansing and has applied her craft to many other area theaters.

McCall also has had extensive experience in outreach and engagement when she coordinated a group of senior theater majors to teach fourth-graders activities to help them understand and enjoy the theater.

The Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts has been honoring undergraduate students since 1982.