Everything Nac

Ron Raines, one of America’s leading Broadway artists and Nacogdoches native, will be the featured vocalist in “Ron Sings Broadway,” a benefit concert at 6 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, in Mast Hall in downtown Nacogdoches. Proceeds will go toward the Strings Scholarship Fund in the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music.

Raines, a Nacogdoches High School graduate who is returning to his hometown to support the benefit, will perform with SFA student musicians. Dr. Gene Moon, director of orchestral activities at SFA, encourages all to come enjoy an evening of Broadway music and support the Strings Scholarship Fund.

A Tony Award nominee for the acclaimed production of “Follies,” Raines has had an illustrious international career spanning musical theater, opera, concert and television. Born and raised in Nacogdoches, Raines attended Oklahoma City University and The Juilliard School. He was a three-time Emmy and Soap Opera Digest Award nominee for his role as villain Alan Spaulding on CBS’s longest running daytime drama “Guiding Light.” He has appeared on “Elementary” and “Person Of Interest.” He starred on Broadway in “Annie,” “Newsies,” “Chicago” and “Show Boat” and originated the role of Nick Longworth in “Teddy and Alice” with Len Cariou.

Raines has delighted audiences around the world with his memorable starring roles in virtually every major American musical and operetta, including “A Little Night Music,” “The Unsinkable Molly Brown,” “South Pacific,” “Kismet,” “Sayonara,” “Kiss Me Kate,” “The King and I,” “Naughty Marietta,” “The Merry Widow,” “Brigadoon,” “Rose Marie,” “Oklahoma!,” “Carousel,” “Side by Side” by Sondheim, “Guys and Dolls,” and “Man of La Mancha” at the Covent Garden Festival.

He has soloed with more than 50 major American and international orchestras, including the Boston Pops, the Philly Pops, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony and the Israel Philharmonic, and he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the 92nd Street Y, Tanglewood, the London Palladium, Rainbow and Stars and Royal Festival Hall. He has appeared on four PBS “Great Performances” and has made two solo recordings on Jay Records and numerous cast albums.

He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

“Ron Sings Broadway” is a joint presentation of the SFA School of Music and Friends of Music.

Tickets are $75 per person with $100 special seating also available. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and School of Music will present Coleidoscope at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 22, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The annual faculty chamber music recital will feature “Romantic Quintets” by composers Theodore Dubois and Franz Schubert, according to Dr. Jennifer Dalmas, associate professor of violin and viola in the School of Music and an ensemble member.

“Coleidoscope features SFA music faculty, and this time we are featuring our new oboe faculty member, Kerry Hughes, who will be performing with us the Quintet by Dubois for oboe, violin, viola, cello and piano,” Dalmas said.

Other performers include Melissa Nabb, viola; Evgeni Raychev, cello; Carlos Gaviria, double bass; and Andrew and Linda Parr, piano.

Written in 1905, the Piano Quintet in F major by Dubois features “lovely lyrical melodies and harmonies that follow in the Romantic French tradition of Camille Saint-Saens,” Dalmas said.

“The work is composed in four movements, and the composer blends the timbre of the oboe and strings skillfully with piano throughout the piece,” she said.

Dalmas described Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A major, Op. 114, “The Trout,” as one of the composer’s best chamber music works.

“Several elements help this piece of chamber music stand out, including its unusual instrumentation, the five-movement structure, and a sense of good nature and ease that pervades the entire piece,” she said. The work is named after the fourth movement – a set of variations on Schubert’s famous song “Die Forelle,” which is German for “the trout.”

The Coleidoscope concert is presented each year in honor of Ed Cole and his late wife, Gwen.

“They have done so much to promote music and the arts here at SFA,” Dalmas said.

A reception in Cole’s honor will be held in the concert hall lobby following the performance.

The recital is part of the SFA School of Music’s Cole Performing Arts Series. 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 (888) 240-ARTS or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

Kerry Hughes, assistant professor of oboe at Stephen F. Austin State University, will perform a faculty recital at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The recital is part of the SFA School of Music’s Cole Performing Arts Series. Joining Hughes will be his wife, pianist Amanda Hughes, who is an active performer, accompanist and piano teacher in Tyler.

The program will feature staples of the solo oboe literature in works by composers Henri Dutilleux, Carl Nielsen, Amilcare Ponchielli, Antal Doráti and Francis Poulenc.

Hughes describes the program music as providing “an interesting contrast of light and darkness.”

“Some works, such as the Poulenc and Dutilleux, are autobiographical as they shed light on the composer’s experience,” Hughes wrote in his program notes. “Poulenc composed his sonata in 1962 (one year before his death) and dedicated it to the memory of Sergei Prokofiev. It is a profound work that is disturbingly grim as it defies the common three-movement sonata conventions of beginning and ending with fast movements.”

“The Dutilleaux oboe sonata dates from 1947 and begins with a very somber mood,” Hughes writes, “but in contrast to the Poulenc sonata, it ends with a calm and tuneful third movement. The lively second movement evokes the sounds of drums and war through its rhythmic figures and melodic content. Both of these composers lived through the horrors of World War I and II.”

The program also includes Danish composer Nielsen’s Fantasy Pieces for Oboe and Piano; Poulenc’s Sonata for oboe and piano; Ponchielli’s Capriccio; and Dorati’s Duo Concertante.

Hughes explains that the Capriccio evokes the world of 19th century Italian opera with its “tuneful melodies and lush Romantic harmonies,” while the Dorati piece uses a fully modern harmonic idiom most closely related to the works of Bartok and Kodaly, both of whom Dorati knew while studying at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest, Hungary.

Kerry Hughes joined the faculty at Stephen F. Austin State University in 2016 and is completing a doctorate at the University of Houston. He has performed on oboe and English horn with orchestras throughout Texas and has had extensive chamber music experience.

Amanda Hughes, who has given several recitals across the U.S. and Europe, is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Houston, where she was awarded a music fellowship and accepted into the studio of legendary pianist and recording artist, Abbey Simon. She is currently professor of piano and music theory at Navarro College.

The concert is a presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and School of Music. Cole concert Hall is located in the Tom and Peggy Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Drive.

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 (888) 240-ARTS or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

The recent Stephen F. Austin State University Press publication “The Road to Llorona Park” by Christopher Carmona has received two major accolades. NBC News nominated the book as one of the eight great Latino books published in 2016, and the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies awarded it the NACCS Tejas Fiction Book Award, which annually recognizes an outstanding work of fiction related to the Mexican-American experience in Texas.

“The Road to Llorona Park” is a collection of short fiction that focuses on the borderlands of the Rio Grande Valley in southern Texas. Each story focuses on a young, Central-American refugee’s experience with the socio-political agenda of the United States, the political unrest in Mexico and the effects those have on people living on either side of the border.

Kim Verhines, director of SFA Press, said Sarah Rafael García, the editor of SFA’s yearly Barrio Writers anthology, introduced Carmona to her. Verhines thought Carmona’s work was “edgy and contained terrific images of life along the border of Texas and Mexico,” Verhines said.

Dr. Brian Murphy, dean of SFA’s College of Liberal and Applied Arts, said that SFA Press provides the university with national recognition for academic and creative excellence.

“The SFA Press has established a national profile with a number of award-winning publications. The press not only demonstrates the academic quality of the university, but also provides hands-on training opportunities for our students,” Murphy said. “Kim Verhines has nurtured a start-up enterprise into a crown jewel in a short time span.”

The awards given to “The Road to Llorona Park” are the latest in a growing number of accolades SFA Press has received, including the International Book Award for Military History, the Nebraska Book Award for Anthology, the Goodreads top 30 African-American authors, the Midwest Authors Book Award and a runner-up for the Paterson Poetry Prize.

East Texas is blessed with an abundance of beautiful trees that thrive in southern landscapes. Chris Dempsey, senior garden technician for Stephen F. Austin State University’s SFA Gardens, will host a public seminar aimed at teaching participants about native trees from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday, Jan. 28, at the SFA Pineywoods Native Plant Center, located at 2900 Raguet St.

Dempsey will help participants choose the ideal tree for their landscapes, make the best selections at the nursery and then demonstrate the appropriate method for planting. He also will discuss reasons for proper pruning, show pruning tools, and demonstrate the specifics of pruning and training shade, ornamental and fruit trees.

“Trees are the largest plants in your landscape and many can provide shade for your house for decades,” Dempsey said. “They must be properly established and maintained to ensure their longevity and beauty and to reduce the risk of disease and damage.”

Dempsey is a Nacogdoches native and an urban forestry graduate of the SFA Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture. He has worked as a tree climber for Bartlett Tree Services in San Marcos.

To register for the seminar, contact SFA Gardens’ education office at (936) 468-1832 or sfagardens@sfasu.edu. Cost is $15 for SFA Garden members and $20 for non-members.