Everything Nac

    The Percussion Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University will showcase a broad spectrum of sound during its annual fall concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The SFA Percussion Ensemble will present its annual fall concert at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, in Cole Concert Hall, located in the Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Drive.

    The concert will open with an energetic drum and cymbal work by Bruce Hamilton and Ney Rosauro’s “Concerto for Vibraphone and Percussion Ensemble,” featuring Dayton senior Jon Gaedchens.

    The ensemble’s 12 members will close the first half with Phillip Mikula’s “To Those Who Are Brave,” which employs “almost every percussion instrument SFA owns!” exclaimed director Scott Harris, SFA associate professor of percussion.

    The second half of the program showcases works of a more contemporary or popular nature, Harris continued. “Alexander Lepak’s ‘Crescendo’ is literally a huge crescendo beginning with the softest fingers on a solo conga and ending with the full ensemble playing as loud as possible, and Ernst Toch’s ‘Geographical Fugue’ uses only spoken text.”

    Mansfield junior Melanie Settle will be the featured xylophone soloist on George Hamilton Green’s ragtime work “Fluffy Ruffles,” and Arthur Lipner’s calypso tune “City Soca” makes use of Latin percussion instruments, steel drums and marimbas.

    Tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2 for students. For tickets or more information, please go to www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS.

    The Choral Union and Women’s Choir of Stephen F. Austin State University will present a joint concert, “Impressions,” at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 1, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

    Both choirs will be performing secular and sacred songs that explore the themes of living, loss, and love as experienced through the senses, said Dr. David Howard, SFA associate director of choirs and the ensembles’ director.

    The Choral Union will open the concert with two Italian madrigals by Salamone Rossi. Tenor Joseph Dennis, McKinney senior, will then join the choir in singing Leos Janácek’s “Elegie na smrt dcery olgy (Elegy on the death of my daughter, Olga)” and Claude Debussy’s “Trois Chansons de Charles d’Orléans,” a setting of three poems by the poet-prince Charles d’Orléans.

    The Women’s Choir will perform Baldassare Galuppi’s “Dixit Dominus (Psalm 110), followed by two song cycles of poems. René Bernier’s “Sortlèges ingés (Ingenuous Spells)” is a grouping of seven songs set to poems by Maurice Carême, and Gwyneth Walker’s “Songs for Women’s Voices” are set to poems by Anna “May” Swenson.

    The Choral Union is an auditioned 70-voice mixed choir composed of music and non-music majors. Dr. Geneva Fung serves as the group’s accompanist. Portugal graduate student Bruno Ribeiro accompanies the 25-voice Women’s Choir.

    Cole Concert Hall is located in the Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Drive.

    Tickets are $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $2 for students. For tickets or more information, please go to www.finearts.sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-6407 or (888) 240-ARTS.

    The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and School of Art will open “The Legacy of Diedrich Rulfs: Architect of Nacogdoches” with a 6 p.m. reception Thursday, Nov. 3, at The Cole Art Center @ the Old Opera House in downtown Nacogdoches.

This photograph of the Emma and Robert Lindsay Home on Virginia Avenue is one of many photographs SFA Associate Professor Christopher Talbot has taken of Nacogdoches buildings designed by architect Diedrich Rulfs. The photographs are showcased in the exhibition, The Legacy of Diedrich Rulfs: Architect of Nacogdoches, which will open at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 3, at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House.

    The exhibition of photographs by Christopher Talbot, interim director of the SFA School of Art, highlights the visual legacy of German-born architect Diedrich Rulfs, who immigrated to Nacogdoches in 1880.

    Over 100 of his Nacogdoches architectural creations, designed between 1880 and the mid-1920s, are still standing, including The Cole Art Center where the exhibition is being held, and many of the town’s turn-of-the-century homes.

    “Diedrich Rulfs has had a profound impact on our community. Everywhere you look in Nacogdoches, you can see his influence,” said Talbot. “This exhibition will allow the viewers to see both the inside and outside view of some of these historic buildings.”

    The photographs will be used in a forthcoming book on the architect by Dr. Jere Jackson, professor of history who was named an SFA Regents Professor for 1996-1997. “Diedrich Rulfs: Designing Modern Nacogdoches” is being published by the SFA Press and should be available in early 2012.

    Talbot said the project gave him an opportunity to use the skills he learned as a commercial architectural photographer in the Washington, D.C., area in the 1990s. “There are some true gems of historic architecture here in Nacogdoches. It has been a pleasure getting access to these homes and businesses.”

    Talbot will give a brief talk during the opening reception, and Jackson will be present.

    The exhibition, which will be displayed in the Jack and Doris Ledbetter Gallery through Saturday, Jan. 14, is sponsored in part by the SFA Friends of the Visual Arts and Nacogdoches Junior Forum.

    The Cole Art Center is located at 329 E. Main St. Regular gallery hours are 12:30 to 5 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday. Admission is free.