A Nov. 6, 2017 story in The Wichita Eagle highlights Alan Held and Samuel Ramey, opera stars who are also instructors at Wichita State.

Alan Held vividly recalls the day in 1985 when he and his wife had their car packed and ready to leave Wichita State University, where he received his master’s degree in opera performance.

“Someday,” he thought, “we’re gonna come back to Wichita.”

“It took us 30 years,” he says now, “but we did.”

During those three decades, Held developed an international reputation for his bass-baritone prowess, performing with opera companies and orchestras from Berlin and Paris to Chicago and Cleveland.

So when he got a call nearly four years ago from Rodney Miller, dean of Wichita State’s college of fine arts, to return to his alma mater, “It wasn’t a hard choice to make,” Held recalled.

This fall, Held was promoted to chair of the opera department – only its third in the past 50 years, succeeding George Gibson and Marie King at the helm of the program.

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