Kokomo, Ind. - Cody Kopka is a humanities major with a focus in performing arts. He's always been interested in performing, but he didn't realize his ability to sing until he had lessons with Garry Grice, a voice faculty at IU Kokomo.
Play the video to hear more of Cody's story, and don't forget to like and subscribe if you are looking for more great content.
The Red Chair is randomly placed around the IU Kokomo campus. Anyone walking by is free to sit down, get comfy, and share their experience about IU Kokomo.
Indiana University Kokomo celebrates 75 years as north central Indiana’s choice for higher education.
Description of the video:
Upbeat music plays while we are shown cuts between different students speaking, aerial shots of campus, and close-ups of the red chair.
The screen reads “The Red Chair at Indiana University Kokomo.”
Cody Kopka, the Dramatic Tenor, sits in the Red Chair. We see the quad behind him on a sunny, early Fall day.
“Yeah so, I’ve always been on stage as an actor, because I’ve always liked to act, but I’ve never liked to sing necessarily, but they still cast me in musicals as the bad guy,” Cody says. “I was Judd in ‘Oklahoma!’ then senior year they made me Shrek in ‘Shrek: The Musical,” because look at me, I had to be Shrek.”
“I started as a business management major, because I wanted to be a front of house manager at a big theatre, and never thought about doing anything further with my music or my theatre, and I ended up just taking some voice lessons with Garry Grice here on campus, and I never thought I could sing very well, and I couldn’t sing very well because it turns out I wasn’t singing the stuff I should be singing and we figured out I’m actually a dramatic tenor, and that’s what I do, I sing here on campus with the Cougar Choir and the Philharmonics, our small group choir and I take private voice lessons with Garry and I’m involved with the theatre program and the musical theatre program and this semester we’re doing ‘Night of the Living Dead’ and it’s going to be a lot of fun, there’s going to be some voiceovers and news announcer-type deals and a lot of fun stuff with that, and that show I believe is going to be free for students five dollars for everyone else”
Cody continues “my overall experience at IUK has been wonderful, the faculty is great, having the smaller class size really let you get that nice intimate experience with your professors, and I mean, as for the students, everyone else, it’s a great school overall. Beautiful campus, great people, and if you reach out to the faculty they’re going to work with you, and they’re also going to ask if there’s something they can do to help.”
“We’ve got the great resources like the CAPS (Counseling and Psychological Services) office where we offer counseling, and we’ve got the Cougar Food Pantry as well, and I mean if you’re in a tough spot, IUK is there to help you, and that’s something you don’t get at a big university.
IU Kokomo brand
Indiana University Kokomo, honoring the bicentennial
iuk.edu
