MANHATTAN — Great Bend native Dr. Bryan Pinkall will help stage the opening ceremony of the XXII Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, on Feb. 7, 2014.
A voice instructor at Kansas State University’s School of Music, Theatre and Dance in Manhattan, Pinkall told the Great Bend Tribune he will join a team of 5,000 performers, artists and organizers selected by the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games to produce the opening ceremony production.
Pinkall grew up in Great Bend studying music from Connie Schneweis and Betty Erikson. He cantored at  St. Patrick Catholic Church and was a member of the Great Bend High School Madrigals and A Cappella choirs under the direction of Susan Stambaugh. He recently received his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Conservatory of Music and Dance at the University of Missouri Kansas City, where he was a Kauffman Scholar. A tenor, he was a featured soloist at the grand opening of the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in 2011, along with Placido Domingo and Itzhak Perlman. He’s shared the stage with many music greats, including YoYo Ma and Aretha Franklin, while performing with symphony orchestras, professional choirs, opera companies and recording groups. Pinkall is also a professional singer in the Kansas City Chorale, which won two Grammy Awards earlier this year.
The selection process for the Olympics team involved two years of interviews and testing. It began with Pinkall learning about the opportunity via the Internet.
“I have always been interested – or more like obsessed – with the Olympics,” he said, calling his selection by the Organizing Committee a dream come true.  “It is an event celebrating what is best about humanity, and the artistic possibilities are nearly limitless.
“I was on the Olympic website one day two years ago and saw the position opening and applied for it. Six months passed and I received an email asking me to do a Skype interview with someone in Europe at 1 a.m. that night.”
The Opening Ceremony of the 2014 Winter Olympics will be one of the largest spectacles in history, he said. Hundreds of world leaders will be in attendance, and it will be broadcast to nearly 2 billion people worldwide. Pinkall will be working with the team to organize and manage portions of the event, and he will participate in the event itself.
The Olympic Flame was lit last Sunday in Olympia, Greece, the birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games. The Sochi 2014 Olympic Torch Relay will be the longest in the entire history of the Olympic Winter Games, and will include a trip to the International Space Station.
The 2014 Winter Games will be the first Winter Olympics hosted in Russia. Moscow hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics, which was boycotted by the United States.
For more information about Bryan Pinkall visit www.bryanpinkall.com. To learn more about the XXII Olympic Winter Games visit www.sochi2014.com.