The Wayne State College Archives is featuring an exhibit that highlights of the music department’s history to celebrate the new renovations of Peterson Fine Arts in the basement of Conn Library this semester.  

The exhibit is open during library hours at no cost according to the WSC Archival Music Exhibit event webpage. 

“I first did a display …for Val Peterson, [I] wanted to know who Val Peterson was, why the building is named after him and so forth,” WSC Archivist, Marcus Schlichter said. “I wanted to follow [that] up with a display about the music department, doing a, not a complete history, that would be too much to try and do that, but at least part of the history.” 

Schlichter said he took care to highlight some of the influential women in the program’s history. “Most of the teachers, at least in the early years, were all men, so I try to point out some women,” Schlichter said. “There’s one, she was here for a couple years, but after she left, she had a fabulous career, being a composer.” he said, “It’s like, too bad we didn’t hold on to her.” 

Schlichter said he enjoyed making discoveries about WSC musical history. “It is always fascinating going back through the history of the college and finding more about things that have happened in the past,” He said. “One of the fascinating things was how in the first couple decades, every year they did what they called an opera.” Schlichter said, “ Technically it was probably more like an operetta or a musical production, I can’t tell, but they were major productions every spring, and I was amazed at how as a small college they could put together a major production like that.” 

While Schlichter made some discoveries, he could not find the meaning of KMK, the name of a piano club at WSC, and would be interested   if anyone knows what it stood for. 

“It’s a mystery what KMK was,” Schlichter said. “K could be keyboard, M could be music, but what would the other K be? I don’t know.”  

The exhibit will run until Dec. 15 according to the event webpage, but Schlichter said it will probably be up for a year. “It takes a while to plan these things and put them together,” he said. 

 Schlichter said students involved in music might especially enjoy the exhibit. “I hope they all learn a bit more about Wayne State history, particularly the music tradition and the heritage of the college,” he  said.