Fran Higgins on her music and Talent Tuesday

Today at noon, the School of Allied Health Profession’s Fran Higgins will plug in her guitar and belt out a 30-minute set of original and cover tunes to kick off the new Talent Tuesday series.

Fran Higgins will perform today at the first UNMC Talent Tuesday. (Photo contributed by Greg Higgins)

Talent Tuesday is a series of one-hour talent shows for employees and students, which will be held every couple months or so on Tuesdays at noon in Bennett Hall.

Higgins has played locally in bars and coffee shops for about 11 years and was the person who came up with the initial idea for Talent Tuesday.

Also performing today are:

• Public relations’ Liz Kumru, a storyteller who will tell a dandy of a ghost story; and
  
• The UNMC Musical Society, which will perform choral and orchestral pieces.

Below Higgins discusses Talent Tuesday and her music with UNMC Today.

How did you come up with the idea for Talent Tuesday?

Ever since the School of Allied Health Professions moved into the renovated Bennett Hall, I’ve had my eye on the auditorium as a place to perform. Some of my co-workers were asking me when my next gig was going to be, so I thought I’d just bring the show to them. I mentioned the idea to some friends in public relations, we talked about it and it morphed into Talent Tuesdays!

How long have you been performing?

I started performing around Omaha back in 1999. My husband, Greg, plays the bagpipes, mandolin and button accordion and we started a Celtic band, originally called “The Bags,” and later renamed “O’Higgin.” Later, I went solo and starting playing more of my original songs. I cut a CD in 2001 called, “The Stuff of Dreams.”

How would you describe your music?

Eclectic acoustic, I guess. Everything from traditional Celtic to Jethro Tull to The Shins. My original songs are probably folk/rock.

Today, you’ll play a song you wrote titled “Heart of Darkness 2005.” Tell us about it.

It was originally written as a poem for class at UNO. I’d just finished Joseph Conrad’s short story, “Heart of Darkness,” and then read an article about UN Peacekeepers exploiting young girls in the Congo. The two stories meshed in my mind and the song/poem is about the Kidogo Usharatis, which is Swahili for small prostitutes.