Everything Nac

Stephen F. Austin State University’s Stone Fort Museum will host two maker workshops in October as part of the Nacogdoches Public Library’s Big Read campaign.

The workshops blend the history of everyday carry, on display in the museum’s current “Pocket, Purse and Pack: Digging into Every Day Carry” exhibit that will run through May 2019, with the everyday carry of the post-apocalyptic future envisioned in Emily St. John Mandel’s novel, “Station Eleven.”

“Tin Can Prep Kits” will provide makers the tools and the tin to create a kit to meet their needs. Whether it is a pocket-sized tech backup or tools to survive a long walk in the woods, this workshop will help you get it together in an Altoids tin. The workshop is slated for 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 6.

The second workshop, titled “Modern Chatelaines and Chow,” will introduce makers to one of the earliest pockets: the chatelaine. Over a side of “good eats,” participants will fashion their modern chatelaine with a Steampunk twist. This workshop is slated for 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24.

Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. The goal of the program is to have all participants read the same book in order to have meaningful discussions, lectures, classes, and interactive entertainment and events to bring the community together.

Both workshops are free of charge, but space is limited. Register by Oct. 5 for the tin can workshop and Oct. 23 for the chatelaine workshop. Leave your name and email address at stonefort@sfasu.edu or (936) 468-2408.

By Emily Brown, marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.

A sold-out auditorium is anticipated for “An Evening with Branford Marsalis” when the College of Fine Arts at Stephen F. Austin State University presents the jazz great in an Encore Event performance at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 10, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus.

NEA Jazz Master, Grammy Award-winning saxophonist, Tony Award nominee and Hollywood star Branford Marsalis is a true jazz legend, and tickets for the special performance began selling quickly on the first day of sales in August, said Scott Shattuck, associate dean of the College of Fine Arts and director of the CFA’s University Series and Encore Events.

“Branford Marsalis may be best known to many as leader of The Tonight Show Band, bantering with Jay Leno,” Shattuck said. “But clearly he is one of the greatest and most versatile musicians in his own right, having soloed with some of the world’s most revered symphony orchestras and pop superstars as well as fellow jazz icons.”

Corporate sponsor Elliott Electric Supply helped to make the performance possible.

“We simply could not have attracted a star of this magnitude without the support of a music lover as generous as Bill Elliott and a company as deeply involved in its home community as Elliott Electric,” Shattuck said.

One of the most revered instrumentalists of his time and leader of one of the finest jazz quartets in the world today, Marsalis is a frequent soloist with classical ensembles. His most current quartet recording is “Four MFs Playin’ Tunes.”

Growing up in a musical family in the rich environment of New Orleans, Branford took up the saxophone when he began working in local bands as a teenager. His first major jazz gig was alongside his brother, trumpet legend Wynton Marsalis, in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

Branford formed his own group in 1986, and the Branford Marsalis Quartet has long been recognized as the standard by which other ensembles of its kind are measured.

In addition to guest turns with a legion of giants including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins, he has excelled in duets with major pianists including his boyhood friend Harry Connick Jr.

Broadway has also welcomed Marsalis’s contributions. He provided music for stage productions starring Denzel Washington, Viola Davis, Angela Bassett and Samuel L. Jackson, garnering a Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination. Marsalis’s screen credits include the original music for Spike Lee’s “Mo’ Better Blues” and acting roles in “School Daze” and “Throw Momma from the Train.”

Marsalis has toured with Sting, collaborated with the Grateful Dead and the Dave Matthews Band, served as musical director of “The Tonight Show Starring Jay Leno” and hosted National Public Radio’s widely syndicated “Jazz Set.”

Prior to the SFA performance, Dr. Nathan Nabb, professor of saxophone in the SFA School of Music, will present an informative talk at 7 p.m. in Griffith Gallery. The gallery is located across the hall from Turner Auditorium, which is inside the Griffith Fine Arts Building, 2222 Alumni Drive. The audience is invited back to the gallery for a post-performance reception to meet the performers and to honor the corporate sponsor.

Patrons will want to mark their calendars for another special Encore Event that features a full-on rock concert with The Purple Xperience on Friday, Nov. 30. Bringing the spirit and sounds of Prince direct from Minneapolis, The Purple Xperience is the most authentic Prince tribute show in the world. This performance is sponsored in part by Lehmann Eye Center.

Encore Event tickets are $45 for Section A seating; $36 for Section B seating; and $27 for Section C seating. Discounts are available for seniors, students, children and SFA faculty and staff members.

For more information, visit finearts.sfasu.edu, stop by the Box Office in Room 211 of the Griffith Fine Arts Building, or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS.

Stephen F. Austin State University’s online master’s degree program in early childhood education has been ranked the third most affordable online program in the nation by Grad School Hub, a website dedicated to helping students find the best graduate degrees nationwide.

Site editors used the National Center for Education Statistics to research the best graduate programs in the U.S. Tuition rates, gainful employment disclosures and outcome measures were analyzed in determining the ranking.

SFA’s Master of Education in early childhood education requires 36 credit hours to complete and is designed to meet the specific needs of individuals who work with children from birth through age 8.

The program develops specialized competency in organizing programs for young children and families through in-depth study and research related to child growth and development, theoretical underpinnings of classroom practice, development of learning strategies and sociological and psychological factors influencing behavior in young children.

Courses are offered completely online through SFA’s online learning management system, Desire2Learn, and are taught in half-semester formats. Students may determine the pace at which they progress, but generally, it takes two years to complete the program.

For more information, visit sfasu.edu/elementaryed/103.asp.

By Kasi Dickerson, senior marketing communications specialist at Stephen F. Austin State University.

The Percussion Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University will present its first concert of the fall semester at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The diverse program includes works by Dr. Brad Meyer, director of the SFA percussion studio and the Percussion Ensemble, Steve Reich, Jacob Druckman, Nick Werth, Joe Moore, Eric Sammut and Joseph Aiello.

Of his own work from “B-Radicles,” Meyer states “Marimbabira” is a combination of the two words “marimba” and “mbira” – “marimba” refers to the instrumentation of the piece, which utilizes four players performing on two 4.3-octave marimbas, and “mbira” alludes to the style of the composition. The mbira is a small instrument held in the hand that has small metal tines attached to a piece of wood; each tine is plucked to produce sound. Mbiras are native to Zimbabwe and are used in both secular and religious music.

Moore’s “Denkyem” uses the idea of adaptability throughout the piece “as the motivic material is passed from player to player, adapting to the instruments used and the ever-changing time signatures,” Moore writes.

Sammut performed his original composition “Four Rotations Pour Marimba” in the final round of the 1995 Leigh Howard Stevens International Marimba Competition. The performance of Rotations I and II from “Four Rotations” in the final round was one of the contributing factors of Sammut winning the competition. Junior performance major, Sophia Lee, will perform the solo.

Aiello’s “Classic African” will be performed by sophomore education major Briley Patterson. It is a timpani solo that incorporates rhythms common to African drumming ensembles such as 12/8 time signatures, according to Meyer.

“The performer is challenged by having to keep different rhythmic ostinato (repeating patterns) going while playing melodic, solo passages at the same time, which creates the aural illusion of one performer becoming two independent players,” Meyer writes in his program notes.

Other program selections include Reich’s “Nagoya Marimbas,” which features repeating patterns played on both marimbas, one or more beats out of phase, creating a series of two-part unison canons. Druckman’s “Reflections on the Nature of Water,” performed by Master of Music candidate Spencer Jones, is a reflection of the “magical preludes” of composer Claude Debussy.

Werth’s “Boom Bap,” is a new composition for six percussionists that pays homage to the evolution of hip hop.

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

The Orchestra of the Pines at Stephen F. Austin State University will present its season opening concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 1, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Pierre-Alain Chevalier will debut as the orchestra’s new music director, and he has selected a program that features works by Richard Wagner, Edward Gregson and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Casey Stringer, one of last year’s winners in SFA School of Music’s concerto competition, will perform as tuba soloist on Gregson’s Concerto for tuba and orchestra (1976). Stringer is a sophomore music education major at SFA. He participates in various ensembles, such as the SFA tuba-euphonium ensemble, the Wind Ensemble and the Orchestra of the Pines. Stringer was most recently named one of the winners of the Clara Freshour Nelson Scholarship, which is awarded each year to only seven students across the state of Texas.

Other featured concert selections are Wagner’s Prelude to “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg” (1867) and Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D major, op. 36 (1802).

Chevalier has performed with orchestras across the country and was a winner of the International Conductors Workshop and Competition in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2016.

He is music director of the Baytown Symphony Orchestra. An active orchestra clinician, he has served the communities of Baytown and Houston in the Goose Creek Memorial, Cypress-Fairbanks, Spring, Klein, Katy and Houston independent school districts.

In concert, Chevalier has conducted the Symphony of Southeast Texas, Coeur D’Alene Symphony (Idaho), Rainier Symphony (Washington), the Gwinnett Symphony Chamber Orchestra (Georgia), the Bayou City Symphony (Texas), the Rose City Chamber Orchestra (Oregon), the Hartt Symphony Orchestra and Contemporary Players (Connecticut), the Moores School Symphony and Chamber Orchestras (Texas), Houston Community College’s Southwest Choir, the Houston Cecelia Chamber Choir and Willamette University’s Dramatic Vocal Arts Ensemble (Oregon). He’s conducted musical theater and opera productions, as well as student choirs and instrumental ensembles in primary and secondary schools and colleges.

Chevalier holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in orchestral conducting from the Moores School of Music, a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting from The Hartt School and a Bachelor of Music degree in music education from Willamette University.

Cole Concert Hall is located in the Tom and Peggy Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Drive.

The concert is a joint presentation of the College of Fine Arts and School of Music. Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.