The video is a promotional interview featuring several members of Wingate University’s music department—faculty, staff, and students—who discuss the program’s strengths, recent growth, and future plans. Speakers highlight the high caliber of incoming students, the close‑knit community, and the passion of the choir and band, noting that the wind ensemble has expanded from 18 to 70 members. They describe space constraints, with only a handful of practice rooms, and announce a fundraising campaign aimed at expanding rehearsal facilities, including a new choral and opera building, a doubled‑size band room, and additional faculty offices. The opera program’s success is emphasized through auditions, graduate alumni taking principal roles, and strong connections to Charlotte’s arts scene. Graduates are actively teaching and performing in Charlotte venues such as Opera Carolina, the Charlotte Symphony, and the Blumenthal Performing Arts Center. Faculty express personal fulfillment and confidence that the department will continue to improve, underscoring the strategic vision and community support driving the music department’s evolution.
Chapters
The flowing feel of it, it kind of just makes me happy.
Over the last 3 years, I've noticed the quality of student that we attract, both academically and in terms of their musical talent, just their natural abilities, is, is really high. And as soon as I stepped on the campus, it was perfect.
Happy birthday to you.
It's a small community. Everybody knows everybody.
It is a small university, but it offers large opportunities. 1, 2, 3.
Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel? And why not every man? Didn't my Lord deliver Daniel? Deliver Daniel. Deliver Daniel.
I don't have a problem saying it, there is not a choir in the state that can compare to the passion and the energy when they are performing.
And I love it.
And my heart ever enough.
So many kids want to come here, they want to hear us sing, and we just need more space because we're growing so, so vast, and that is a great thing.
The band program has just really seen tremendous growth. When I got here 5 years ago, there were 18, 18 people in the wind ensemble. Now we have 70.
We only have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 practice rooms, and there are a bunch of us, so more would be nice. If you don't practice, then you won't go far.
Also, we're launching a campaign for music, and that will actually support endowment, program, and for bricks and mortar, so for the addition. And that addition is mainly rehearsal space. There will actually be a new choral and opera facility. We're doubling the size of the band room, and we'll create 4 to 8 studio faculty offices. So it's actually a lot of great space for individuals and for large group practices.
In short, when I've a smattering of elemental strategy—
With the opera program, I invite the incoming freshmen to audition.
You'll say a better major general has never sat in—
Some of my freshmen who started out in the opera program have since graduated and had principal roles in every production that we did. So they left Wingate going off to graduate school with all this tremendous performing experience, which you don't get at other small schools or any school, period.
Our graduates are in Charlotte and are teaching in Charlotte, are performing in Charlotte, either with Opera Carolina or working for the Charlotte Symphony Or working for the Blumenthal Center, Performing Arts Center, or singing with Oratorio Singers. The Wingate faculty and leadership at the university have made a concerted effort to reach out to the arts community in Charlotte, which is wonderful. People ask me, wow, how have you stayed at Wingate for 25 years? And I say, well, it gets better every year. So one, why would I want to leave? And two, How good is this gonna get? I really want to find out.
I know that all the hard work I'm doing, I'm doing it the right way, and I'm putting it towards something great for the future. I would say that it's like the best thing ever happened to me personally.
Deliver Daniel! Deliver Daniel! Deliver Daniel! Deliver Daniel! Deliver Daniel! Oh, never mind us! Forever remain.
