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.