Everything Nac

Chelsea Campbell, Douglass senior and psychology major at Stephen F. Austin State University, was recently awarded a travel grant by the psychology division of the Council of Undergraduate Research. The grant was awarded in response to an abstract Campbell submitted to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology annual conference. Campbell will present alongside her mentors, Drs. Lauren Brewer (left) and Kyle Conlon (right), assistant professors in SFA’s psychology department.

The Music Preparatory Division in the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music has announced its fall recital schedule.

A number of performances will take place beginning at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4, in the performance hall of the Music Prep House, 3028 Raguet St. The afternoon concerts will feature guitar students of Chance Moore, cello students of Kate Hire, harp student of Emily Mitchell, voice students of Charlotte Davis and violin/fiddle students of Emily Williams.

Violin students of Dr. Jennifer Dalmas and cello students of Dr. Evgeni Raychev will perform at 6 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10. in Cole concert Hall in the Wright Music Building on the SFA campus.

On Sunday, Dec. 11, piano students of Mary Cooper will perform at 2 p.m. in Cole Concert Hall, and music major instructors’ piano students and students of Dr. Mario Ajero will perform at 4 p.m. in the Music Recital Hall.

The Piney Woods Youth Orchestra, directed by Raychev, will perform at 7 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12, in Cole Concert Hall.

Fall recitals will conclude on Saturday, Dec. 17, with the SFA Young Violinists, composed of students of Brenda Josephsen, performing at 4 p.m. in Cole Concert Hall and piano students of Linda Parr performing at 4 p.m. in the Music Recital Hall.

All recitals are open to the public.

Registrations for spring classes offered through the Music Preparatory Division are being accepted. Music Prep offers musical training on any level of proficiency. Overall musicianship is stressed in addition to the study of an instrument. Private music lessons are offered in piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, harp, classical guitar, voice, percussion, French horn, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, composition, euphonium and flute.

In addition to the Piney Woods Youth Orchestra, Music Prep offers the PineyWoods Fiddlers, an adult piano class, the Raguet Strings adult ensemble and Music Theory Adventures classes. Music Prep teaches all ages, from infants to 80 and beyond. Music therapy is also offered.

For a complete listing of classes and types of instruction available, visit www.music.sfasu.edu/prep or contact Director Pat Barnett at (936) 468-1291.

A Stephen F. Austin State University music composition student is bringing international attention to his work and SFA.

Tyler sophomore Jesse Edwards will soon have one of his compositions premiered at the 2016 Alfred Schnittke International Composers’ Forum and Competition in Lviv, Ukraine. His woodwind quintet, “Saturday Afternoon,” will be performed Dec. 7 in the concert hall of the Lviv Philharmonic Society.

Edwards’ composition was selected through a highly competitive process to be included at the finalist level of the overall event, according to Dr. Stephen Lias, professor of composition in the SFA School of Music and Edwards’ composition instructor.

“Although there is another level to the competition that will occur in Ukraine, the honor he has already earned by getting this far is on par with the highest accomplishments any of our SFA students have achieved,” Lias said. “Added to that, the pivotal experience he’ll have by attending this international symposium will be truly life-changing for him.

“We are extremely proud of Jesse’s accomplishments and expect even more will come as he continues to grow as a composer,” Lias added.

The competition is held in conjunction with a series of concerts, the first of which took place Nov. 30 and the others are scheduled for Dec. 7 and Dec. 12, in Lviv where Edwards will be involved with and attend rehearsals of his piece and eventually hear it premiered. At the conclusion of the concert series, three official winners will be announced.

Inclusion of Edwards’ work in the competition elevates him from student composer to international composer.

“It’s a testament of my composition ability,” he said, “particularly to musicians in the future of whom I want to play my music.”

Edwards further explained the significance of the competition exposure as “a giant circle,” in which reputable performances lead to more reputable performances and greater opportunities.

“An international premiere associated with the Lviv Philharmonic shows to any musicians short of that status that I’m capable of writing for them and having my music performed by them,” he said. “This means that a lot of really good musicians will take me more seriously than when my biggest premiere was by a college orchestra, which is still great, and I’m not bashing that.”

Edwards said he always takes a great deal of time composing works musicians such as those performing these competition pieces would consider of high quality.

“Before doing anything with a piece of music, there has to be a lot of tedious editing to make the music look and sound as though it could and should be played by a group of reputable musicians such as this,” he said “So when cool opportunities like this come around, all I have to do is submit.”

Edwards said he is able to attend the conferences and concert in Lviv due to the “incredible generosity and support” of Dr. A.C. “Buddy” Himes, dean of the College of Fine Arts, and Dr. Michael Tkacik, director of the School of Honors.

Edwards’ goal is to have a successful career as a composer.

“I love it all – film, theatre, concert settings,” he said. “Wherever I can get my music played is where I’ll be.”

Artwork created by Gary Frields, an artist and former Stephen F. Austin State University professor of art who passed away in 2013, has been on exhibit in SFA’s Culinary Café throughout the fall semester. A closing reception will be held for the exhibit from 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, in the Culinary Café, located in the Education Annex, Room 121.

Frields’ widow, Tamara Robertson, organized the exhibit that features Frields’ paintings, drawings, sculptures and digital artwork. A portion of the proceeds from artwork sold during the exhibit will benefit the Gary Q. Frields Art Scholarship, which is annually awarded to an SFA art major.

“Gary’s philosophy regarding art was open ended. He did not believe there was any one right way to begin an artwork or any one right style of art,” Robertson said. “To me, he was a Picasso.”

In his artist’s statement, Frields described his creative process as spontaneous and perceptive. He wrote, “I begin most works with no attempt to make any particular thing. I proceed relentlessly relying on emotional, intuitive reactions while exploring materials and responding as things happen that are not planned.”

The SFA and Nacogdoches communities are invited to attend the closing reception, and light refreshments will be served.

The Center for Regional Heritage Research at Stephen F. Austin State University has successfully scanned and modeled in 3-D more than 400 Native American ceramics as part of a $39,600 grant awarded in 2014 by the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training.

With grant efforts concluding, the center has been able to both digitally preserve and study hundreds of Caddo vessels obtained from archaeological sites throughout East Texas and streamline a methodological approach that will assist similar future endeavors to study variations in vessel shape, form, allometry and asymmetry.

“The project went exceptionally well,” said Dr. Robert Z. Selden Jr., research associate at the CRHR. “In terms of working with 3-D data, we are one of the few labs in North America, really in the world, that are dealing with these issues in an effort to push us into a more dynamic realm to where we can start asking much more pointed questions about specific elements of artifact geometry.”

The grant from the funding agency, which is part of the National Park Service, supported the 3-D scanning, processing and analysis of the artifacts, offering researchers unprecedented access to these important historical objects. The images are stored in a digital repository for future research, while the sacred vessels themselves will be returned to the Caddo in accordance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

“We were able to refine and streamline our entire process,” Selden said. “We found a way to approach the analysis of vessel form that was more rigorous. The whole of the procedure is replicable, ensuring that other researchers could use our data to arrive at the same conclusions. The high degree of variability in Caddo ceramic technology and design makes their vessels particularly well-suited for this manner of inquiry.”

While previous Caddo ceramic research has focused on classifying the artifacts by motif and design elements, Selden said the project has allowed him and other scholars at the CRHR to delve further into the rich stories that lie behind the objects’ varied shapes.

Though grant funds have been exhausted, the CRHR will continue scanning pieces as part of a larger, ongoing 3-D mapping project. Overall, approximately 2,500 scans of Caddo vessels are archived in the center’s online database, hosted through ScholarWorks. Visit scholarworks.sfasu.edu/crhr to access, view and manipulate the scans.

The Percussion Studio at Stephen F. Austin State University and its director, Dr. Brad Meyer, will coordinate an interactive community performance of Phil Kline’s “Unsilent Night” starting at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 10, at The Liberty Bell, 422 E. Main St., downtown Nacogdoches.

Participants will enjoy a 45-minute walk through picturesque Nacogdoches while listening to a recording of “Unsilent Night” that has been downloaded to play over a smart device connected to portable speakers or to a CD played over a boom box.

Meyer encouraged community members to participate in the performance by following one of two steps:

• Download the app (https://itunes.apple.com/app/phil-klines-unsilent-night/id483509723?mt=8 or search “Phil Kline’s Unsilent Night” in your app store) and play it over a smart device by connecting it to a portable speaker.

• Download one of the four mp3 tracks from http://unsilentnight.com/participate and burn it to a CD that can be played over a boombox.

People can play the music from the app over their phone speaker, but this has a less-than-desirable sound quality and should only be used if the other options are not possible, Meyer said.

“If inclement weather occurs, we plan on doing the performance inside The Liberty Bell,” he said. “To participate, simply be at The Liberty Bell by 7:15 p.m. and have a way to play the ‘Unsilent Night’ music. Music players are not supplied by the host, so please plan on bringing your own music player.”

Joe Woodard of The Los Angeles Times described the “Unsilent Night” event as, “A dreamy fruitcake of parts, tranquil even through its anarchy.” And K. Leander Williams in Time Out New York said, “Kline’s luminous, shimmering wash of bell tones is one of the loveliest communal new-music experiences you’ll ever encounter, and it’s never the same twice.”

Meyer further defined it as a family-friendly event, with people often bringing their children with infants and toddlers in strollers.

“‘Unsilent Night’ has in fact become a holiday tradition for many families,” he said. “Some families have been doing it for the past 20 years, and their children have grown up walking ‘Unsilent Night.'”

The event is part of the SFA School of Music’s Cole Performing Arts Series. For more information, go to http://unsilentnight.com, visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS.