Everything Nac

An upcoming Stephen F. Austin State University School of Theatre event will help raise funds for theatre students to travel to Edinburgh, Scotland, in August where they will present an SFA student-written play at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

During the two-week trip to Edinburgh, the School of Theatre will produce two new plays, including “Hate Mail” by SFA playwright-in-residence Jack Heifner and the student-written “Mom and Dad” by Nick Pinelli and Allison Day. Pinelli, The Woodlands senior, and Day, San Antonio senior, wrote the play as an honors project for their class with Heifner.

A staged reading of “Mom and Dad” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 13, in the Upstage Theatre in the Griffith Fine Arts Building on the SFA campus.

““Mom and Dad’ is an eye-opening and humorous piece about gender perceptions,” said Angela Bacarisse, professor of design and arts management at SFA. “The play takes a young couple, newly dating, and throws them into marriage and parenthood. The couple faces the highs and lows of their new life together, and in the end, they have to decide if it is worth moving forward together.”

Bacarisse will direct both plays.

Begun in 1947, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, one of several festivals that will take place in Edinburgh while the SFA students are there, has become the largest international theatre arts festival in the world. During festival season, which is three weeks in August, the International Festival, the Festival Fringe, jazz festival, art festival and book festival all take place in Edinburgh.

Tickets to the reading are $25 each available at the door, and seating is limited. There will be a reception after the performance where patrons may meet the students participating in the project.

To reserve a seat at the reading or to help fund the students’ travel, contact Bacarisse at abacarisse@sfasu.edu or (936) 468-1126. Tax-exempt donations can be made at sfasu.edu/giving by clicking on the “give online” tab and writing “Scotland trip” for special instructions.

Visit theatre.sfasu.edu to learn more about the SFA School of Theatre.

The winner of the 2015 Schmidbauer Young Artist Competition at Stephen F. Austin State University will be the guest violinist when the Orchestra of the Pines performs at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 10, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Fiona Shea, 15, of Lubbock, who took first place in this year’s piano and strings competition, will perform as guest soloist when the orchestra performs the first movement of Khachaturian’s violin concerto, according to Dr. Gene Moon, director of orchestral studies at SFA.

“The Khachaturian violin concerto is a powerhouse violin concerto that shows off its soloist in a grand flurry of virtuosity and lyricism,” he said.

Describing the program as a “diverse musical smorgasbord of works,” Moon said the concert will feature graduate students as guest conductors and the world premiers of works composed by graduate composition students.

“The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” composed by Ian Deterling of Poplar, Wis., is incidental music that was inspired by a 1920s silent horror film directed by Robert Wiene, according to Moon.

“Deterling’s writing uses melodic figures that cunningly weave in and about the orchestra, creating an eclectic tapestry,” Moon said in describing the piece.

“Final Flight” composed by Ross Cleveland of Wichita Falls, is a musical recreation of the retiring of an old show plane, the Curtiss JN4-D, known as “The Jenny.”

“Cleveland’s composition offers subtitles describing each chapter of the grand finale event of the plane’s retirement, from the engine’s last ignition, to the roar of the engine and its final flight in the air,” Moon said.

Guest conductors will include SFA graduate students Jeff Leung of Hong Kong and Eliezer Dobrin of Corinth. Leung will direct the performance of Jean Sibelius’ Karelia Suite. Dobrin will conduct Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Adagio and Fugue, which Moon described as “a condensed and powerful representation of Mozart’s late musical style.”

Tickets for the concert, which is a presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and School of Music, 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.

Fiona Shea, a 15-year-old violinist from Lubbock, took first place in the 2015 Schmidbauer Young Artist Competition at Stephen F. Austin State University.

As the top contestant in this year’s piano and strings competition, Shea will perform the first movement of Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto with SFA’s premier ensemble, the Orchestra of the Pines, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 10, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

A valuable recruiting tool for SFA, the Schmidbauer Competition offers a unique performance opportunity for young musicians, offering prizes that include cash awards, scholarship incentives from the SFA School of Music and performance opportunities with orchestras.

Other winners this year were Derek Louie, 16, who is in his sixth year at the Juilliard School pre-college in New York, N.Y., earning second place, and Samantha Choo, 15, of Plano, who earned third place.

The Schmidbauer Young Artist Competition, an annual presentation of the SFA College of Fine Arts and School of Music, was established several years ago after George and Peggy Schmidbauer, California residents who founded Cal-Tex Lumber Company in Nacogdoches, made a donation to SFA specifically for fostering and promoting classical music.

The Schmidbauer Competition continues to serve as one of the highest benchmarks in the competition circuit and is a catalyst for launching successful careers. Past winners have continued their careers to perform with professional artists and orchestras all over the world.