Everything Nac

Members of the Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts Dean’s Circle recently recognized its 2015 award recipients at the annual Winners’ Circle reception held in the home of Bo and Melanie Miller.

This year’s recipients, who were announced and honored in April, were re-introduced at the reception. Recipients included Megan Eve Henderson, Round Rock art major, recipient of the Ed and Gwen Cole Dean’s Award in Art; Amanda J. Sheriff, Houston music education major, recipient of the Jack and Naioma Ledbetter Dean’s Award in Music; Kaylea A. Fleming, Kingwood music education major, recipient of the Dr. Robert Sidnell Memorial Dean’s Award in Music Education; and Shelby K. Gilliland, Frisco theatre major, recipient of the George and Peggy Schmidbauer Dean’s Award in Theatre.

Each recipient was selected by the faculty of their respective schools on the basis of their potential to further develop their artistic goals and serve as role models, according to Dr. A.C. “Buddy” Himes, dean of the College of Fine Arts.

The Dean’s Awards not only recognize the recipients for what they have already accomplished, but the awards are also designed to inspire them to reach deep from within to aspire to a higher level of excellence, Himes explained. The awards were established by the Dean’s Circle, an external support organization of community members founded in 2008 and “dedicated, in part, to nurturing potential young artists within the College of Fine Arts,” Himes said.

Program sponsors were recognized at the event. Those included Cal-Tex Lumber Company, Nacogdoches Medical Center, Cecil and Gloria Settle, First Bank & Trust of East Texas, Flashback Café, Nacogdoches Memorial Health, The Sidnell Family, CBH Insurance Agency, Grogan’s Cleaners, Nacogdoches Film Festival, Regions Bank, Old Souls Food Truck and auctioneer Kent Crank.

The annual fall event serves as a membership drive and fundraiser for the Dean’s Circle. In addition to recognizing the accomplishments of students, the Dean’s Circle is also focused on enhancing instructional opportunities for fine arts faculty. The Dean’s Circle realized the College of Fine Arts’ first ever endowed professorship this year, and its recipient will be announced in the spring.

The Choral Union and Women’s Choir at Stephen F. Austin State University will perform a concert of sacred music at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, in Cole Concert Hall in the Wright Music Building on the SFA campus.

The theme of the concert, “Sacred Journeys,” was chosen as a reflection of sacred music from all over the world and different time periods, according to Dr. Tod Fish, assistant professor and associate director of choral activities for the SFA School of Music.

“The concert is representative of 12 different countries and drawn from music as early as the mid-15th century to works that are contemporary,” Fish said. “This is the most challenging and stylistically diverse program these choirs have performed during my tenure at SFA. It is going to be an exciting concert.”

School of Music faculty member Melissa Nabb will serve as the viola soloist for Giacomo Puccini’s setting of “Requiem aeternam,” and guests from SFA’s orchestra program will also join in the performance.

The Women’s Choir will sing a contemporary setting of “Cantate Domino” by Canadian composer Rupert Lang.

“It incorporates the usage of an electronic keyboard instrument and aleatoric techniques from the choir,” Fish said, “as the choristers will sing the portions of the Latin text at their own tempo under a soloist. It is a most effective setting.”

The women’s choir will also sing Guillaume Dufay’s “Ave Regina Caelorum,” an early Renaissance style piece that employs the usage of archaic techniques, such as the “Landini Cadence,” that does not lend itself to the modern ear, Fish explained.

The Choral Union will sing “Himne” by Roelof Temmingh, who makes use of the 20th century compositional techniques of the octatonic scale and serialism, but does them in a way that makes the harmonic material seem functional, Fish said.

“It is a fascinating piece, with a challenging accompaniment for Olga Wong, our accompanist,” he said.

The Choral Union will also sing “Otche Nash” (The Lord’s Prayer) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

“It is set in the style of chant used in the Russian Orthodox Church,” Fish said. “It is a lovely setting of great depth of tone and texture. The Choral Union will perform it in the original Church Slavonic.”

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 work of Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music faculty member Dr. Stephen Lias is featured in 60×60 Dance to be presented at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place in New York City as part of the Vox Novus Festival.

60×60 Dance features 60 one-minute audio pieces by different composers paired with 60 different dances creating a one-hour non-stop performance. Two performances, one at 12:30 p.m. and another at 8 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, make up part of the Vox Novus Festival, which is celebrating its 15 years of presenting and promoting new music.

Lias is professor of composition at SFA. His one-minute work “Where Am I This Time?” is featured in this 60×60 mix. Dances will span all forms from ballet to hip-hop to ballroom and contemporary, while music includes neo-romantic, folk, tech-house, noise, rock and everything in-between.

Primarily active in concert and chamber music, Lias’ activities as an adventurer-composer have led him to write more than a dozen pieces inspired by the national parks of the USA. He has served as artist-in-residence at Denali, Glacier, Rocky Mountain, Gates of the Arctic and Glacier Bay national parks, and the resulting pieces have been performed in such far-flung places as Alaska, Australia, Taiwan, Russia, and across the United States.

Two different CDs of his chamber music were released last year, and he has been commissioned by the Boulder Philharmonic to write a new piece to be premiered in 2017 at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.