Monday, November 16, 2015

Concert times

Oklahoma City University Upcoming concerts November 16-30

November 21, 4 pm

KARLYE WHITT JUNIOR VOICE RECITAL--SMALL REHEARSAL HALL
free and open to the public!

November 21, 8 pm

OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY OPERA--DON PASQUALE--KIRKPATRICK
tickets $12-25 405-208-5227 or www.okcu.edu/tickets
Would you like two hours of magnificent singing telling a really funny story packed into one entertaining evening? Come see this charming fully staged presentation of Donizetti's Don Pasquale and experience the tale of how a man wishing to marry in his old age to produce an heir so he can disinherit his rebellious nephew takes a unique flight of fancy when the tables are turned!

November 22, 8 pm

LIZA CLARK AND ASHTON PARRACK JUNIOR VOICE RECITAL--SMALL REHEARSAL HALL
free and open to the public!

November 23, 8 pm

OCU JAZZ ENSEMBLE--PETREE
free and open to the public!

November 24, 8 pm

OCU PERCUSSION ENSEMBLE--PETREE
free and open to the public!

All of these performances are at Oklahoma City University in the beautiful, handicapped accessible Wanda L. Bass School of Music. For the ticketed events, please call the ticket office at Oklahoma City University at 405-208-5227 or www.okcu.edu/tickets. If you have any other types of questions about the events please call 405-208-5474.

Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Texoma National Association of Teachers of Singing Conference

Exciting things are happening in the next few days! From Thursday November 11 through Saturday November 13, 2015 the Wanda L. Bass School of Music plays host to the 2015 Texoma National Association of Teachers of Singing Conference. Talented singers from all over Texas and Oklahoma will be here to compete for several prizes. Often those competitions are open for public viewing and are free for interested families of the competitors, as well as local students faculty and staff to view. I'm going to provide a schedule of events for this because some of the events are available to view even if you are not a member of the conference. For instance, the Nathan Gunn performance on Friday evening is part of the Distinguished Artist Concert Series and tickets are available for that for $20 to the general public. Please call 405-208-5227 to speak to the box office or go to www.okcu.edu/tickets.

65th Texoma NATS Regional Conference

Oklahoma City University

Wanda L. Bass School of Music

2501 N. Blackwelder

Oklahoma City, OK 73106

November 11-14, 2015

Schedule of Events

Edward Baird Singer of the Year Preliminary Round

November 11, 2015

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2015

12:30p	Edward Baird Singer of the Year Preliminaries	Petree Recital Hall

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2015







10-10:50a	Artist Series 1 Once Upon a Time: Fairy Tales in Art Song Leslie John Flanagan, baritone Elizabeth Avery, piano	Petree Recital Hall

11-11:50a	Artist Series 2 Dominick Argento’s “From the Diary of Virginia Woolf”: A Musical Glimpse into a Writer’s Mind Jacquelyn Matava, mezzo-soprano Mark Alexander, piano	Petree Recital Hall

12:30-1:20p	Artist Series 3 Don Quichotte in Film and Musical Theater David Robinson, baritone; Jan McDaniel, piano	Petree Recital Hall



2:00-2:50p	Artist Series 4 Primary Colors: The Musical Collaboration of Sister Helen Prejean and Jake Hegge Catherine McDaniel, mezzo-soprano; Jan McDaniel, piano, Parthena Owens, flute	Petree Recital Hall

3:00-3:50p	Artist Series 5 Rufus Wainright’s “Songs for Lulu” when a Singer-Songwriter crosses over into Art Song Nicole Asel, mezzo-soprano Eric Jenkins, piano	Petree Recital Hall

8:00p	Oklahoma City University Opera Music Theatre Presents Don Pasquale	Kirkpatrick Auditorium

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2015



9-9:50a	Artist Series 6 What’s on Your Bookshelf: The Well-Read Pedagogue’s Guide to a Studio Library Debra Greschner	Petree Rectial Hall

10-10:50a	Artist Series 7 Langston Hughes in Poetry and SongDonna Mitchell-Cox, soprano; Erica Thomas, reader; Lorne Richstone, piano	Petree Recital Hall

11-12:30p	Master Class Stanford Olsen, tenor University of Michigan	Petree Recital Hall



1:30 -2:20p	Artist Series 8 Jean Sibelius as a Song Composer Sooah Park, soprano Vicki Conway, piano	Petree Recital Hall







8:00p	Guest Artist Recital Nathan and Julie Gunn	Kirkpatrick Auditorium

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2015



9:30a	Announcement of Semi-finalists College divisions (VIIA-XIV)	Kirkpatrick Auditorium



12:00p	Announcement of Semi-finals Youth divisions (IIIA-IVB)	Petree Recital Hall



2:00p	Edward Baird Singer of the Year Final Competition and Presentation	Kirkpatrick Auditorium

3:30p	Announcement of all Finalists	Kirkpatrick Auditorium


7:00p	Finals: Divisions XIB-XIV	Kirkpatrick Auditorium
	Announcement of Grady Harlan Award Winner

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Brahms and Webern and Passacaglias! Oh My!

Anton Webern

Johannes Brahms

November 7th, 2015 8 pm.

OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA--PETREE
free and open to the public!
     Listening for intertwining lines of music is going to be a big factor in understanding what is going on in the music on Oklahoma City University's second concert of the season which will be held on Saturday, November 7, 2015 in Petree Recital Hall inside the Wanda L. Bass School of Music on the Oklahoma City University Campus at 8 pm. Orchestral music can be quite entrancing, particularly when it is written by master composers such as Johannes Brahms and Anton Webern. There will be program notes tonight at the concert so I don't want to steal the annotator's thunder by writing TOO much about the history behind the actual pieces on the concert, but I do think some things are worth mentioning. You will hear Johannes Brahms's Fourth Symphony and Anton Webern's Passacaglia for Orchestra, Opus 1. Most people understand that a symphony usually has four movements and that often there will be certain musical thoughts and ideas that link those four movements into one complete thought in one way or another. The word Passacaglia, however, is somewhat more mystifying and so it might prove helpful to know that this is a name for a seventeenth-century dance that is in triple meter that has a distinctive feature. Passacaglia's were a dance that included a continuously repeated bass line throughout the work. Usually the higher-sounding voices in the composition show off the composer's ingenuity and creativity by displaying how many different melodies he can weave in and around and through that continuously repeated bass line. In one sense the listener isn't supposed to fixate just on the bass line, the listener is instead supposed to be mesmerized by all the amazing ways the composer can make the same bass pattern performed over and over again sound completely different each time it returns.

     What is remarkable about tonight's concert is that the musical form of a Passacaglia unites both pieces on the program. Webern's Passacaglia starts so quietly that you might think of it as a musical whisper. Instead of being just a bass line, the beginning of this work is written for flute, harp, violas and cellos and all of the instruments are told to play as quietly as possible. The whole work is shaped like an arch that speeds up and grows louder until a middle point and then calms and relaxes back to conclude as it began, into a whispering silence. You hear the repeated eighth note bass pattern twenty three times, but it often completely disappears into the orchestral sound. You might ask yourself how Brahms's symphony could be related to a passacaglia. Barely 20 years separate these two works, Webern wrote his Passacaglia in 1908 and Brahms wrote his symphony in 1885.  Webern undoubtedly knew Brahms's work because the two composers lived in the same city, Vienna, and Brahms's music was quite famous when Webern was growing up. How could Brahms have influenced Webern? Well, you see, Brahms was an avid music historian. He loved the music of Johann Sebastian Bach and he was very intrigued with the idea of incorporating ancient styles and forms into his own compositions. One way he decided to do this was to use the theme from Bach's Cantata No. 150 as the bass line of the passacaglia he implants into the final movement of his Fourth Symphony. As you listen to this final movement, you'll hear that theme repeated over and over something like thirty separate times. The ever changing, intertwining upper lines that are performed above that bass line drives forward with a sense of gradually accumulating power until when your ears arrive at the concluding pages of the Symphony every single moment seems to be relentlessly charged with defiance and bristling with a magnificent, culminating, dramatic intensity. Both passacaglias should be exceptional tonight, come and hear how two master composers take the same general idea and make two totally different yet equally fascinating works come to life!

Friday, November 6, 2015

The Live Concert Rush--Turtle Island String Quartet

Attending a live concert is a unique experience these days. We have Mp3's and CD's and radios and streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora or Naxos and Alexander Street Press....places to go to find anything our hearts could possibly desire to listen to. The culture of going to a concert and sitting in a hushed quiet hall with other listeners is something quite novel to experience. This blog post is my plea to everyone to open your minds to the magnificent magic of watching people make music in a live setting! Music making is an intimate pleasure, those of us who can play an instrument or use our voices practice hours and hours alone in a room making sure that when we get in front of an audience, we can give our best. For most of us this music making and the eventual sharing of our talent is our best way of communicating to the outside world. A live concert is part us, part that long dedicated practice toward perfection, part our side of a musical conversation....but it is equally part the participation of the audience. Our music is made for your ears, we dedicate ourselves to making the best music possible so that you--the audience--can hear it and experience it and come to an understanding with it. Music is the universal language and the same performance will say different things to each different listener in the room. The interaction is magical, though. Seeing excellent musicians perform is electrifying! Watching four individuals wordlessly communicate with one another and perform something intricate as if the four actually function as one large instrument is one of the greatest experiences anyone can have! There is this inward rush one feels at seeing this occur, hearing the music live and watching the interactions of the performers creates a sense of anticipation and tension and moves us humans on a deeply spiritual and emotional level. Watch this video of the Turtle Island String Quartet...look particularly at how they communicate with one another as they play.

https://youtu.be/atUBSc22WFA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atUBSc22WFA&noredirect=1

This group is a string quartet--four stringed instruments, two violins a viola and a cello--all playing together. They specialize in playing music not typical to what most people perceive that a string quartet should play. These men are so deeply "in" to the music they play that watching them perform becomes half the pleasure of listening to them make the music. At the end of the performance when the applause bursts forth from the audience you can hear one of the performers say "They liked that!" You can hear the joy in his voice that the audience reacted to their music, that the audience concluded the musical conversation by expressing their enjoyment of the performance! Turtle Island String Quartet will be playing tonight, November 6th at 8pm in Petree Recital Hall at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University in the first concert of the 2015 Distinguished Artist Series. Their concert tonight focuses on jazz. These guys have won two Grammy awards for best cross-over album and they are seriously, excellently, fantasmagorically cool!! Come and experience the rush of watching four truly gifted musicians perform awesome, innovative music! Come be a part of the mystical magical musical conversation!

Thursday, November 5, 2015

Upcoming concerts November 6-15

Oklahoma City University Upcoming concerts November 6-15

One of the more marvelous things about Oklahoma City University, is that there are performances going on here virtually every night!! Most of the events are free and open to the general public. A few of the more special events require a minimal entrance fee. This blog is intended to be a public service for Oklahoma City University Faculty and Staff as well as for the general Oklahoma City Community. Concert life here is really one of the greatest hidden gems of the City and for families looking for professional caliber entertainment at free or easily affordable rates, Oklahoma City University is a truly exceptional center of live entertainment! Come, enjoy the amazing professional-level talent our students have and admire the expertise of our visiting artists and faculty performances!

November 6, 8pm.

TURTLE ISLAND STRING QUARTET--PETREE
tickets $20 405-208-5227 or www.okcu.edu/tickets
     This group has been together 30 years and they use groove-based rhythmic techniques that create new arrangements of cool jazz standards and this concert will be all about blurring the lines between classical music and jazz!! This concert is the beginning of our illustrious Distinguished Artist's series.

November 7th, 8 pm.

OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA--PETREE
free and open to the public!
     Under the baton of Eric Garcia, the Oklahoma City University Symphony Orchestra performs Johannes Brahms's grand and glorious Fourth Symphony. Brahms was fifty-two in 1885 when this symphony was written, and this work is at once a summation of its composer’s learning and technique, and a work of art that for all its complexities cuts as close to the deepest feelings of the heart as music can. Brahms's Fourth Symphony displays his essence most completely and he melds form and function into a perfect balance. In his first three symphonies Brahms took every effort to shape the symphony into a genuinely personal statement, he went even farther in the Fourth—farther than anyone since Beethoven. Particularly in the final movement, he wrote music not simply personal and not simply contemporary, but music that heralded a new future for symphonic music. The orchestra will also perform Anton Webern's Passacaglia for Orchestra, Op. 1., which was the composers first truly original statement that marked his independence from four years' study with Arnold Schoenberg. It was written in 1908 and is Webern's most played and most easily understood work. Join us for an exciting evening of orchestral music!

November 8, 2:30-3:00 pm

2015 OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY ALUMNI BAND--ATRIUM
free and open to the public!
It's time for the FOURTH ANNUAL Oklahoma City University Alumni Band! Spread the word!
Repertoire:
John Philip Sousa – Bullets and Bayonets
Anton Bruckner - Hymn of Praise
Vincent Persichetti – Symphony for Band: II. Adagio sostenuto
Percy Grainger – Lincolnshire Posy: I, II, IV, VI
James Norris - Hail, Alma Mater

November 8, 6 pm

CRYSTAL HAITH SENIOR OBOE RECITAL--SMALL REHEARSAL HALL
free and open to the public!
30 minutes of sweet oboe and English horn bliss featuring pieces by Telemann, Fauré, Haydn, and Nielsen.

November 8, 8 pm

STEPHANIE FEEBACK JUNIOR VOICE RECITAL--SMALL REHEARSAL HALL
free and open to the public!

November 10, 7:30 pm

OKC SYMPHONIC BAND CONCERT--PETREE
free and open to the public!

November 13, 8 pm

NATHAN GUNN, BARITONE; JULIE JORDAN GUNN, PIANO--KIRKPATRICK
tickets $20 405-208-5227 or www.okcu.edu/tickets
Nathan Gunn is an operatic baritone and this concert is the second in our Distinguished Artist Series. His voice is truly phenomenal and the repertoire he will cover during this recital will range from operatic arias to popular musical theater tunes. Please come and enjoy the mighty heft and richness of one of the leading baritone voices in the opera world today.

November 15, 3 pm

PAVEL NERSESSIAN, PIANO--PETREE
tickets $20 405-208-5227 or www.okcu.edu/tickets
OCU’s annual Mae Ruth Swanson Memorial Concert will feature pianist Pavel Nersessian who has been a touring pianist since the age of 8. He has won the Beethoven Competition in Vienna, the Paloma O’Shea Competition in Santander, and the Tokyo Competition. The Boston Musical Intelligencer raved of a recent performance that Nersessian “has chops aplenty: major powers, accurate marksmanship, ultra light touch with many shades and colors of quiet, and instrument-bouncing dynamic range. Quickly evident were a certain aplomb, easy competence taken for granted by him and us, dash, plus a degree of casual seriousness or serious casualness to it all.” This concert is another of our Distinguished Artist's series concert events.

November 15, 8 pm

JENNIFER-MIHEE SONG AND JAEHEE KIM DUO PIANO RECITAL--PETREE
free and open to the public!
Song and Kim are two very accomplished professional pianists living in Oklahoma City with successful piano studios filled with award-winning students. They display their virtuosity tonight by performing works by Schubert, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Debussy, and Lutoslawski in a duo piano recital.

All of these performances are at Oklahoma City University in the beautiful, handicapped accessible Wanda L. Bass School of Music. For the ticketed events, please call the ticket office at Oklahoma City University at 405-208-5227 or www.okcu.edu/tickets. If you have any other types of questions about the events please call 405-208-5474.