Everything Nac

The second Brave Space Series, created and hosted by the Stephen F. Austin State University Office of Multicultural Affairs, will be at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26, in the Baker Pattillo Student Center Student Affairs Commons, Room 3.201.

The series was developed to allow for open and honest discussion of difficult topics among the SFA and Nacogdoches communities. While the first touched on racial tensions and perspectives, the second series will cover LBGT issues.

The Brave Space Series is the first of its kind to be hosted through the OMA. Though the office offers diversity- and unity-based programs throughout the year, the series is new and offers a unique opportunity.

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music and the Cole Performing Arts Series will present the WoodWired Duo performing in a guest recital at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26, in the Music Recital Hall in the Wright Music Building on the SFA campus.

WoodWired is a new electroacoustic duo based in Denton. The duo features Dr. Cheyenne Cruz, clarinet, and Hannah Leffler, flute, teaming up to create a unique take on the popular clarinet/flute combination, according to Dr. Christopher Ayer, professor of clarinet at SFA.

“Using live looping software and electronics, they play original pieces and their own arrangements of contemporary and classical music to create upbeat, fresh music that represents a fusion of classical, jazz and pop genres,” Ayer explained. “Each of the musical layers is performed live and looped using foot pedals and software, in addition to exclusively live solos for each instrument.”

They will perform their own original works along with music by Astor Piazzolla, Michael Lowenstern, Imogen Heap and Zequinha de Abreu.

Cruz joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Arlington in 2016. Previously, she served as adjunct clarinet instructor at SFA and was the Teaching Fellow in chamber music for the University of North Texas. Cruz maintains a private clarinet studio in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. As a performer, she has appeared with the Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, the San Angelo Symphony, the Longview Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Wind Symphony. She is presently a member of the Lone Star Wind Orchestra and has been the substitute second clarinetist with the Texarkana Symphony Orchestra for the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons. She is a published author in professional music journals.

Leffler has held flute faculty positions at Luther College, the Northeast Iowa School of Music, the Lutheran Summer Music Academy and Sounds of Summer Institute, and numerous high schools and middle schools in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. She currently is a Teaching Fellow and Doctorate of Musical Arts candidate in flute performance at the University of North Texas. She has been a featured guest artist and clinician at numerous schools and events across the Midwest and performs frequently with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Symphony Orchestra and the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra. She has been a featured soloist with the University of North Texas Symphony Orchestra, the University of Northern Iowa Symphony Orchestra, the Oklahoma City University Symphony Orchestra, the Oklahoma City University Wind Philharmonic and the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra.

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 Choral Union and Women’s Choir at Stephen F. Austin State University will present “Voice of the Children,” featuring the Hudson Middle School Choir, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Highlights of the program will be performances of John Rutter’s “Mass of the Children,” featuring the Stone Fort Wind Quintet, and Benjamin Britten’s “Ceremony of Carols,” featuring SFA harpist Emily Mitchell. The program title was chosen because of these two compositions, according to Dr. Tod Fish, associate professor of voice and the choirs’ director.

Text for “A Ceremony of Carols” is taken from a collection of medieval poems that portray the birth of the infant Christ as a warrior against Satan and sin. Fish describes the work as “one of the monumental works of the treble choir repertoire and arguably the most popular work within the genre.”

“Britten throughout his life was seeking to regain his child-like innocence that disappears with adulthood,” Fish said. “The Middle English poetry portrays the Christ Child as an infant warrior against the evils of sin.”

“Mass of the Children” is Rutter’s only major work written since 2001, which was the year he lost his son in an automobile accident, Fish explained. The work is for adult choir, children’s choir and chamber ensemble, and the performing forces for this will be the Choral Union, Hudson Middle School Choir, directed by Mary Turner, and an SFA instrumental faculty chamber ensemble.

“This work also depicts child-like innocence with its lovely, simple melodies and employment of a children’s choir in each movement,” Fish said. “Rutter supplements the Mass with popular English poetry, sung by children’s choir, to exude both youthful exuberance and naiveté.

“We are thrilled to have the Hudson Middle School Choir joining us for this concert,” Fish said. “It has been a dream of mine to feature a local choir for some time now. I hope it is something we can continue for the future.”

The concert is a presentation of the SFA 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.

Bryan Morales, sophomore Spanish and French major at Stephen F. Austin State University, experiments with a da Vinci surgical robot on display in the Baker Pattillo Student Center Thursday morning on the SFA campus. The robot provides technology to surgeons allowing for greater autonomy and precision during minimally invasive procedures. A representative from Intuitive Surgical was on hand to help demonstrate the robot and highlight to observers how this latest technology benefits the SFA and Nacogdoches communities.