Everything Nac

Keep Nacogdoches Beautiful and the East Texas Jeep Club Presents:
#Trashtag @ Shawnee River Bottom

Nacogdoches, Texas – Keep Nacogdoches Beautiful and the East Texas Jeep Club will present #Trashtag @ Shawnee River Bottom, taking place on November 23, 2019, from 9:00 A.M. to 2:30 P.M.

Keep Nacogdoches Beautiful and the Nacogdoches Jeep Club presents #trashtag, an event to help clear up all the litter that is currently residing along the Shawnee River Bottom. Volunteers are needed for this event to help clean up litter.
Volunteers will meet at 2500 Woden Road (Woden Road Quick Stop) Nacogdoches, TX 75961 at 9:00 A.M. and the departure time will be promptly at 9:00 A.M.

More details about the event;

● Volunteers will need to check in at the Woden Road Quick Stop by 9:00 A.M.
● Closed-toed shoes are REQUIRED. (rain boots are preferred)
● Wear OLD CLOTHES(long sleeve shirts and long pants are highly preferred)
● Equipment and supplies will be PROVIDED
● Lunch PROVIDED

Keep Nacogdoches Beautiful
Offices at 2516 North Street
P.O. Box 633030, Nacogdoches, TX 75963
info@keepnacbeautiful.org | Tel: 936-560-5624

A community sing-along of George Frideric Handel’s “Messiah” will raise funds for the A Cappella Choir at Stephen F. Austin State University to travel to Italy in 2020.

The community event, with conductors, soloists and pianists, and featuring the audience and SFA A Cappella Choir as the chorus, is at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The fundraiser is designed to help defray the costs of the choir’s 2020 Italy tour, according to Dr. Michael Murphy, director of choral activities in the SFA School of Music. For information on how to donate to the Italy trip, email Murphy at murphymt2@sfasu.edu or call (936) 468-1181.

“Ring in the holiday season with the perennial favorite, Handel’s ‘Messiah,'” Murphy said. “The SFA choral area is hosting a community sing-along for Nacogdoches and surrounding communities. Bring your ‘Messiah’ score or rent one for $2 from the SFA choral area and sing or listen to Handel’s glorious masterpiece.”

The program will feature graduate and undergraduate student soloists Cole Jones of Livingston, Nathan Ponder and Anthony Rodriguez, both of Houston, William Murphy of Nacogdoches, Summer Price of Needville, Reagan Bradshaw of Wiley, Kayla Luptak of Bullard, Megan Stone of Spring, Brianna Glaze of Beaumont and Viveca Richards of Houston. In addition to Murphy, conductors will include Dr. Tod Fish, associate director of choral activities, and SFA graduate students in choral conducting, Jacob Rivas of The Colony, David Zielke of Albany, Oregon, and Greg Simmons of Lufkin. Accompanists will be SFA collaborative pianists Dr. Ron Petti and Dr. Thomas Nixon.

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

Tickets are $15 adults, $10 senior citizens, $5 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 Cello Club will present the program “Around the World” at 1 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 16, in Cole Concert Hall on the Stephen F. Austin State University campus.

“It has been 500 years since Ferdinand Magellan left Spain sailing west to circumnavigate Earth,” said Dr. Evgeni Raychev, cello instructor in the SFA School of Music and artistic director for Cello Club. “This concert will take us on a musical journey together from Spain to the Caribbean and through the Far East.”

Cello Club is an educational project aimed at establishing a path of success for developing young artists, according Raychev.

“This endeavor seeks to promote and provide opportunities for cello ensemble playing, establish connections between musicians, develop an awareness of ensemble techniques, and provide competitive opportunities and collaborations with professional musicians,” Raychev said. “It is designed to help build one’s creativity and imagination and to promote the esthetics of art.”

The program of original arrangements will include the world premiere of “Latin Dances,” commissioned and composed for this event by Mike McGowan, adjunct professor of music theory in the School of Music.

Participants in this year’s Cello Club are all from Texas and come from Henderson, Houston, Nacogdoches, Lufkin, Beckville, Carrollton, Gary, Tyler, Frisco, Longview, Tomball, Plano, Flower Mound and Diana.

Any donations and profit exceeding the Cello Club’s expenses will be used for building scholarship opportunities.

Admission to the concert is free. For more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.

The School of Theatre at Stephen F. Austin State University is keen on building collaborative artistic relationships across disciplines on campus and within the Nacogdoches community. A number of unique collaborations in the upcoming Mainstage Series presentation of William Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” takes this theatre experience to a higher level, according to CC Conn, associate professor of lighting and sound design.

Among the strongest of these collaborations is with musician Casey Muze Williams of Starr Avenue Co. Williams is working with Conn, sound designer for “Titus,” along with the play’s assistant sound designer, Corpus Christi junior Armando Chavez-Garcia, and School of Theatre Technical Director Tyler Cureton to create the show’s sound accompaniment live, on stage with “found objects” rather than traditional instruments.

The sound design concept stems from show Director Cleo House Jr.’s concept of a post-apocalyptic world and his desire to incorporate an onstage musician. House is director of the School of Theatre. Because of the post-apocalyptic setting, Conn wanted to create a “found object” soundscape that could be indicative of a world where traditional musical instruments may no longer exist or be difficult to locate. As a result, this has given the production “a strong sense of collaborative creativity and exploration,” she said.

Williams and Conn have explored various sound qualities of these items to match them with the moods within the play. Chavez-Garcia and Cureton have created many of the objects which are part of the sound setup. There will be electronic sound playback and microphone support, as well.

Williams, a performance percussionist using numerous rhythm instruments, established Starr Avenue Co. in 2016 with an idea for hosting open invitation music jam sessions as a community outreach endeavor.

“Our mission is to provide opportunities for individuals within a community to explore creativity and participate in educational opportunities that strengthen the positive relationships of the citizens within that community,” Williams explained. “We do this by providing opportunities for self-expression that include art, music and other creative avenues. We are founded on a strong belief that art, music and other creative expressions are some of the healthiest ways to advocate for positivity and acceptance among the citizens of each community.”

In another collaboration, Victoria sophomore Myah Mallory, sound engineer, will do a full accompaniment of microphones for the cast in order to support a clean, multi-camera recording of the opening-night performance to be provided by mass communication students of Dr. Casey Hart, associate professor of mass communication at SFA.

“Mallory will be prepping and operating a 20-mic show,” Conn said. “This is a complicated job for a sophomore-level student. However, Mallory was the sound engineer for an eight-mic play last summer. Live mics require a lot of preplanning in acquiring the supplies needed and setting up the sound equipment in the theatre. During the performances, Mallory will place the microphones on the actors and operate the mixing board to properly reinforce the actors’ voices over the music. She will also make a recording of the performance for the video production by the mass communications students.”

Mia Lindemann, a senior from Prosper, is providing lighting design for show. With a scheduled December graduation, it will be Lindemann’s final design at SFA. With Conn’s help, she acquired a loan of seven LED fixtures for demo purposes from Electronic Theatre Controls, a global leader in the manufacture of lighting and rigging technology. These fixtures will help to create the eerie atmospheres in the production along with fog and haze.

This adaptation of “Titus Andronicus” takes place in 2100 in Washington, D.C., in a post American-Russian (Roman-Goth) fallout. The play chronicles Rome’s honored general as he returns home from war and begins a cycle of revenge filled with bloody deaths as punishment for a series of committed wrongs.

“Titus Andronicus” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, Nov. 12 through 16, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus. A matinee for high school students is at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 14.

Single tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and non-SFA students and $7.50 for youth. Tickets for SFA students are $5. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.theatre.sfasu.edu. The play is recommended for mature audiences.