Everything Nac

The president of Stephen F. Austin State University proclaimed Thursday “William E. Arscott Day” on campus in honor of the cinematography program director’s 50th year on the faculty.

A proclamation announcing the special day was read during a meeting of the faculty and staff Thursday morning and was a surprise to the professor, who began teaching painting, ceramics and sculpture in 1963 and is the longest tenured faculty member at SFA.

“As director of the School of Art’s renowned filmmaking program, Bill Arscott has taught, mentored, and positively influenced the lives, education, and careers of hundreds of SFA students,” said Dr. Baker Pattillo, SFA president. “The proclamation is an expression of the SFA community’s admiration, gratitude, and high regard for Bill Arscott and his 50 years of dedicated service to his students, his craft, the university, and the community.”

Early in Arscott’s career, he became well-known for teaching art appreciation classes using innovative methods to captivate and inspire his students. For more than three decades, he has led SFA’s cinematography program, which is highly respected throughout the filmmaking industry. His professional accolades include being honored with a resolution in the Texas Senate, named a Distinguished Professor by the SFA Alumni Association and appointed Regents Professor by the SFA Board of Regents for the 1984-85 academic year.

In a recent interview, Arscott, a native of Nacogdoches, said it is his relationship with students that keeps him coming back to teach at SFA year after year.

“When I came to SFA, I was thinking of staying for two years,” he said. “I keep teaching because I love my students. It is the most rewarding thing in the world to work with students to produce movies that are works of art – that say something and make people think.”

The Stephen F. Austin State University School of Music and the Cole Performing Arts Series will present The Alazan Trio performing “Women of the World” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 5, in Cole Concert Hall in the Wright Music Building on the SFA campus.

The trio, featuring SFA music faculty members Jennifer Dalmas, violin, her husband, Evgeni Raychev, cello, and Ron Petti, piano, will perform works by Jennifer Higdon, Amy Beach, Maria Grenfell and Rebecca Clarke.

According to Petti, the selected trio by Beach, the late American composer and virtuoso pianist, is “very reminiscent of French composer and pianist Claude Debussy,” while the trio by the English composer Clarke is “consistently fascinating in its interrelated themes across the movements, including a spectral fanfare which appears in the first movement and ecstatically in the piano cadenza in the finale.”

“A Feather of Blue,” written by Grenfell, coordinator of composition at The University of Tasmania, Australia, who was resident composer at SFA during the 2013 spring semester, is also among the piano trios to be performed. Commissioned in 2000 by the New Zealand Trio, “A Feather of Blue” takes its title from a phrase in the poem “A View From A Window” by New Zealand writer Kevin Ireland, according to Grenfell.

“I have always admired the wry humor and brightness of Kevin Ireland’s writing and many years ago set three of his poems for soprano and mixed ensemble,” Grenfell said. “As a kind gesture, Mr. Ireland sent me a copy of his book of poems, ‘Skinning A Fish,’ and I was particularly struck by the imagery of colors, flowers, feathers and birds in this poem, which illustrates rain pouring down a window pane and giving way to a burst of sunshine after a storm.”

Higdon’s work is in two contrasting movements, “Pale Yellow” and Fiery Red,” as she explores whether music can be reflected in color and color can be reflected in music.

“I have always been fascinated with the connection between painting and music,” she said. “In my composing, I often picture colors as if I were spreading them on a canvas, except I do so with melodies and harmonies and through the peculiar sounds of the instruments themselves.”

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.