October 2014 Number 2

ULTRA NewsOctober 2014 Number 2

             

             

             

     

   

       

             

             

 

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- ULTRA Sponsored Events Layout by Colton Wrzesinski, Center Graduate Assistant

ctoberJazz Ensembles I & II

Concert, FACAuditorium, 7:30 pm

Wind Ensemble ConcertFAC Auditorium

7:30 pm

Cody Sergeant Senior Recital

FAC Auditorium7:30 pm

Chamber Winds Concert W/ Leslie SpotzFAC Auditorium

7:30 pm

Choir Concert FAC Theater

7:30 pm

Tarleton Piano Festival: Concert W/ Knut Jensen

FAC Theater 7:30 pm

Opera Workshop Performance

FAC Auditorium7:30 pm

Tarleton Piano Festival FAC Theater 7:30 pm

G a l l e r y : A l e k s S l o t a S e p t 3 0 - O c t 3 0

Young People’s Series:Sleepy Hollow FAC Theater

10:00 am or 2:00 pm

Cary Richards Senior Lecture RecitalFAC Theater 7:30 pm

Steven Perez Senior Recital

FAC Auditorium7:30 pm

Featured guest artist Knut Erik Jensen will perform and teach at the Tarleton Piano Festival on October 10-11, 2014. The Norwegian pianist will perform a solo recital Friday, October 11, 2014, at 7:30 pm, in the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center Theater, featuring works of Norwegian and American composers, including the ever popular Edvard Grieg, contemporary composers Geirr Tveitt and Ståle Kleiberg, and American Earl Wild’s transcription of Rachmaninoff. For ticket info call 254-968-9634 and for Festival info call 254-968-9241.

Knut Erik Jensen has performed over 150 solo concerts featuringNorwegian and international music on the North American continent since 2007. He has performed in 48 states, and was also a soloist in Edvard Grieg´s A-minor Concerto with the Minot Symphony Orchestra in North Dakota and the Saratoga Chamber Orchestra in Washington state. He performed the same concerto with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of the Republic of Moldova in eastern Europe and was soloist in Alexander Scriabin´s Piano Concerto with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra in Norway. He has recorded two CDs of Norwegian piano music: Edvard Grieg - Anniversary Collection and Nordic Elegance. Jensen was born in the small town of Hell, Norway.

Norwegian Pianist Comes to Tarleton

The Department of Fine Arts presents the second art exhibit of the 2014 - 2015 season, What It is to Be Us, featuring the Germany based artist Aleks Slota. The exhibit will run from September 30 - October 1 and is open from 9:00 am - 5:00 pm on weekdays in the Gallery of the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center.

WHAT IT IS TO BE USFor four consecutive Sundays beginning in February 2014, Aleks Slota opened the French doors of his small, third floor balcony in Berlin and gave a speech, by megaphone, to an incidental group of people enjoying a flea market below. These speeches, although drafted for specific purposes in history, were never delivered by the original intended orator. Instead, the speech was prevented or deemed unnecessary due to a variety of circumstances.

Includes speeches by Richard Nixon, Queen Elizabeth, Benigno Aquino Jr., and Frank B. (Wamsutta) James Presented in this exhibition are four posters used to announce the performances, video documentation, and a limited edition dubplate LP containing the live recording of all four speeches.

ABOUT THE ARTISTAleks Slota is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, photography, sound, video, and installation. His work reflects an interest in the absurd, the interaction of fantasy and reality, and the meaning of public/private space. Slota’s recent work focuses on performance, primarily in public spaces.

The LP on display contains live recordings of the speeches as they were delivered in Berlin. To purchase a limited edition dubplate, please contact the artist directly at aleks@aleksslota.com.

In the Gallery: What is it to Be Us by Aleks Slota

The Tarleton Jazz Ensembles will perform their first concert of the semester Thursday, October 2, at 7:30 pm in the Fine Arts Center Auditorium. In what has become a tradition over the last few years, this concert will feature several of our outstanding student vocalists singing classic American tunes with the bands. This has been an audience favorite and this year’s concert is sure to please. The singers sound great and with classics like Fever, The Best is Yet to Come, Don’t Get Around Much Any More, and As Time Goes By the audience will have a hard time not tapping their toes and singing along all night.

Jazz Ensembles I & II in Concert

October 2014 Number 2

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Coming off a very impressive season with a finale performance at Carnegie Hall, the Tarleton State University Wind Ensemble will feature music of composers from abroad with guest artists who will offer an equal international experience. The opening Wind Ensemble concert is set for Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at 7:30 pm in the Fine Arts Center Auditorium. Tickets are free, however a donation of any amount is requested. A partner with the annual “Pass the Hat Campaign”, funds raised at this concert will go to benefit the Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation.

Opening the concert is the finale to Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony #5. Following the opening number, guest artist Nobue Matsuoka (American

University, Washington D.C.) will perform Lee Actor’s Concerto for Timpani and Band. Continuing with the international theme, Tarleton Assistant Professor of Voice, Dr. Iwao Asakura, will sing three Neapolitan works recently transcribed for winds by the conductor, Dr. Anthony Pursell. This collection, made popular by Luciano Pavarotti, will include ‘O sole mio, Torna a surriento, and Funiculi, Funicula. Following these works, the Wind Ensemble will turn its attention to one of the cornerstone works for wind band by Australian-born composer, Percy Grainger. Lincolnshire Posy consists of six movements that originate, mostly, from folk tunes from the Lincolnshire (England) area. Concluding the concert is a trio of xylophone soloists in Dmitri Kabalevsky’s Galop. Soloists will include guest artist Nobue Matsuoka, and Tarleton music majors Haden Capps and Matthew Nelson.

Wind Ensemble Charity Concert Opens With International Flavor

On Friday, October 24, the Department of Fine Arts will present up-and-coming Tarleton singers in an evening of selected scenes of Operas and Musicals. The performance is directed by Assistant Professors Dr. Iwao Asakura and Dr. Heather Hawk, and begins at 7:30 pm in the Clyde H. Wells Fine Arts Center Auditorium. This event is free and open to the public.

Evening of Operas and Musicals: A Grand Night of Singing features scenes of Operas and Musicals, including Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel, Lehar’s The Merry Widow, Mozart’s operas, Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute along with Broadway Musicals, Miss Saigon, The Book of Mormon, and Elton John’s Aïda. Most of these scenes will be sung in English and performed by Tarleton vocal majors. The program will be accompanied by Ms. Heather Hamilton.

Evening of Operas and Musicals: A Grand Night of Singing

Pianist and Associate Professor Leslie Spotz will join Dr. Anthony Pursell, Director of Bands, and the Tarleton Chamber Winds on Thursday, October 30, at 7:30 pm in the Fine Arts Center Auditorium. Spotz will be featured soloist in the ever popular Piano Concerto in C minor, Op. 18 by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) in what will be a historic World Premiere, the first ever version of this magnificent work, scored by Dr. Pursell for chamber wind ensemble

Spotz enjoys an international career that has included solo performances at Tchaikovsky Hall of Moscow University, South Bank Center of London, Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, the inaugural opening of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, recitals in Taiwan, Brazil, and several tours of Germany. She has played extensively throughout the United States, including appearances with the Mozart Society of Philadelphia and her 2010 all-Chopin Bicentennial recital in New York City at the Tenri Cultural Institute. She has been invited to return there for a solo performance in February 2014. She returned to London for chamber music performances in May 2011 and made her debut in Argentina in 2013. Concert highlights include her 2007 performance at Tarleton as soloist with the Fort Worth Symphony and her performances of twenty Beethoven Sonatas at Rutgers University, along with numerous recordings.

The Rachmaninoff is one of the most enduring of his numerous romantic masterpieces, culminating in a finale that is a flashing display of keyboard virtuosity with electrifying grandeur. The main theme provides a lyrical contrast to the surrounding pianistic brilliance and is one of the most beautiful themes of the twentieth century. Rachmaninoff, noted in his compositions for his native Russian spirit, was also an immigrant to America, where in addition to his composing, he performed concert tours as a solo pianist. He performed across Texas in the first half of the twentieth century.

Prior to the Rachmaninoff, the concert will open with the Tarleton Brass Ensemble in Eugene Gigout’s powerful composition, Grand Choeur Dialogue. Few instrumental combinations seem more inevitable and natural than brass and organ. The organ is itself a kind of wind instrument, after all, whose varieties of tonal color can either coalesce with those of trumpet, horn, trombone, and tuba to create new timbres, or else stand apart in happy contrast. Gigout’s composition employs a full brass ensemble, paired with percussion and organ.

Following the Gigout, the Chamber Winds will perform a gorgeous rendition of Joaquin Rodrigo’s Adagio para orquesta de instrumentos de viento. Rodrigo, who lost his eyesight at age three, was commissioned to write the Adagio in 1964 as part of a Spanish music and art festival in Pittsburgh. Contrasting sections within the Adagio will make this work a very special part of the evening’s program.

Pianist Leslie Spotz to join Dr. Anthony Pursell and the Chamber Wind Ensemble

As Halloween approaches let us help you get into a spooky mood with this classic tale from Washington Irving The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, dramatized by Kathryn Schultz Miller. The story revolves around Ichabod Crane, the new schoolmaster, as he finds his way through the quiet village of Tarry Town; known to the townspeople as “Sleepy Hollow”. When Ichabod falls for the beautiful Katrina Van Tassel, he angers Brom Bones, the rough and tough rival for Katrina’s love. Although the schoolteacher is tormented by “The Sleepy Hollow Boys”, led by their leader Brom, it is the legendary Headless Horseman that haunts the church bridge near the schoolhouse who scares Ichabod the most! Watch as the legend shows that not everything that goes bump in the night is our imagination and beware the nightly ride of the Headless Horseman. This production will be directed by senior theatre major Emilia Richardson. The public performances are Saturday, October 18, 2014 at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm. Tickets are $3.00 and available in the box office one hour prior to the event. For more information call Dayle at (254) 968-9291

Young People’s Series presents: Sleepy Hollow