Everything Nac

The Wind Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University will present the program “Solace” when the band performs at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 12, in the Grand Ballroom of the Baker Pattillo Student Center on the SFA campus.

Under the direction of Dr. Tamey Anglley, director of bands at SFA, the ensemble will perform works by Percy Grainger, Emmanuel Chabrier, Donald Grantham and guest composer Joel Love.

The concert opens with Grainger’s “The Duke of Marlborough Fanfare” for brass and percussion written in 1939 from an English folk song about personal dedication and pride in battle. “It served as an outlet for Grainger’s sadness and frustration of having to flee England before the outbreak of World War II,” Anglley explained.

Chabrier composed “Marche Joyeuse” for piano in 1885, but it was orchestrated in 1888. Legendary Texas music educator Fred Junkin arranged the march for wind band in 1998.

“Baron Cimetiere’s Mambo,” written in 2004 by Grantham, is based on the voodoo spirit who is the keeper and guardian of cemeteries and is “usually pictured in a dark tailcoat and tall dark hat, like an undertaker, and is a notorious mocker and trickster,” according to Grantham. Guest composer Love studied composition with Grantham at the University of Texas at Austin from 2010 through 2014.

Wind Ensemble will perform its first piece by Love, “Solace: A Lyric Concerto” for Solo Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble. The alto saxophone soloist will be Interim Director of the School of Music and Professor of Saxophone Dr. Nathan Nabb. “‘Solace’ is in five movements where each movement meditates on a mood: joy, besieged, gratitude, hiding and work. The saxophone is challenged to play lyrically in extreme registers while playing virtuosic passages in five unique sound worlds,” according to Love.

The Wind Ensemble will close its first concert of the season with Love’s “Indigo Train.” This piece, written for Love’s high school band director Gary Wells, takes its inspiration from trains due to Wells growing up around trains. “Trains inspire images of the Deep South and the rich history of the blues, which was born there and eventually traveled up the Mississippi to Chicago,” Love said. “I imagined a person quickly traveling through railcars, experiencing a slightly different music in each.”

Admission to the concert is free. Other upcoming band concerts include the Wind Symphony and Symphonic band performing at 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 17, and the Wind Ensemble, Wind Symphony, Symphonic Band, Percussion Ensemble, Trombone Choir and the SFA Faculty Brass Quintet presenting the Kaleidoscope Concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 16, all in the Grand Ballroom of the student center. For additional information, contact the School of Music at (936) 468-4602.

From the moment Jake Hill’s flight landed in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, he knew the next three months of his life would be unlike any other he had experienced.

“I got off the plane at noon on a Friday, and the reserve manager picked me up and said, ‘I know you’re a bit tired, but we’ve got to go dart some cape buffalo,'” said Hill, a senior studying forest wildlife management at Stephen F. Austin State University. “I hadn’t even unpacked, and I was out darting buffalo in need of medical attention.”

As an intern for the 50,000-acre Buffalo Kloof Private Game Reserve, Hill filled the role of assistant to the reserve manager, completing an extensive range of projects supporting habitat conservation, ecosystem restoration and endangered species recovery.

The reserve works closely with the World Wildlife Fund, Ashia Cheetah Conservation, Veterans Against the Poaching of African Wildlife, as well as other entities and programs throughout Africa to facilitate species reintroduction, relocation and anti-poaching initiatives.

The reserve is home to a number of species included on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. Established in 1964, the Red List of Threatened Species serves as the world’s most comprehensive record of information on the extinction risk status of global flora, fauna and fungi. The black and white rhinoceros, African elephant, leopard, cheetah and the blue crane — the national bird of South Africa — are among the Buffalo Kloof residents found on this list.

“The biggest project they are putting the most energy into right now is their rhino program,” Hill said.

In 2009, the reserve reintroduced two white rhinoceros, a keystone African species whose grazing and browsing behaviors help shape the landscape. Following the successful reintroduction and subsequent birth of white rhinoceros calves, the reserve collaborated with local communities and additional organizations to relocate critically endangered black rhinoceros.

According to the International Rhino Foundation, black rhinoceros experienced a population decline of 96% between 1970 and 1993. During the past two decades, persistent anti-poaching initiatives and deliberate translocations to safer habitat have resulted in some respite to population loss.

“Buffalo Kloof has an anti-poaching team with the sole duty of monitoring the rhinos through game camera traps,” Hill said. “This is one of the many projects I assisted with.”

In addition to the reserve’s anti-poaching team, it also is actively engaged in cutting-edge research to aide authorities in detecting illegally poached rhinoceros horns being smuggled outside the country.

While internships are designed to place students in real-world situations related to their field of study, Hill’s environment delivered exceptionally unique challenges. For example, how does a team sedate and relocate a 7.5-ton male elephant that ventured outside of the reserve’s boundaries and into local communities?

“The reserve has a specialized truck with a crane on it for game capture, and we had two helicopters in the air,” Hill said. “It was chaos because the adult male traveled roughly 8 miles outside of the reserve, so we had to travel on public highways. We had this giant elephant sedated and secured to the back of a truck — it was crazy.”

Ultimately, after hours of tracking, strategizing and precise maneuvering along the highway, the elephant was returned to the safety of the reserve and fitted with a GPS neck collar to track its movements.

To fund these large-scale conservation projects, Buffalo Kloof relies on regulated ecotourism, including photographic safaris and ethical harvesting of designated species.

Wild game harvested during these guided hunts is donated to the local Yondella community where the reserve is engaged in multiple community development initiatives, including conservation education, infrastructure improvement and job training.

In addition to his daily tasks, Hill collaborated with the reserve manager to organize the first Buffalo Kloof Student Conservation Experience.

“We accepted eight wildlife students from the U.S. and brought them over for a three-week crash course in the conservation and management of South African wildlife,” Hill said.

Cassandra Kapp, SFA forest wildlife management student, was among those selected from universities across Texas.

“Having this experience of working with a group of brilliant, like-minded individuals, I know that as long as I continue to work hard and engage in once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, I can find myself working with a diversity of species in an incredibly exciting career,” Kapp said.

Hill said the three months spent working with large herbivores in Africa fulfills a decades-long dream. And between his time spent reflecting on wildlife conservation models and monitoring endangered species, he ultimately found himself thinking about something other than wildlife.

“At first, I was just focused on the internship, but then I realized I lived in an entirely different culture for three months,” Hill said. “I got to experience so much from the culture and the people there — it was so much more than an internship.”

Story by Sarah Fuller, outreach coordinator for Stephen F. Austin State University’s Arthur Temple College of Forestry and Agriculture. Contact information: (936) 468-1185 or fullersa@sfasu.edu.

The Chamber Singers at Stephen F. Austin State University will present the program “Haste On, my Joys!” when the student choral ensemble performs at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 10, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The ensemble is under the direction of Dr. Michael Murphy, director of choral activities at SFA, along with Grant Peterson, graduate conductor from Wylie.

The first half of the concert will feature William Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices. Following intermission, the ensemble will sing choral music of Gerald Finzi, Paul Siskind, Felix Mendelssohn, Stephen Paulus and Howard Hanson. The Chamber Singers will perform a world premiere of Texas composer James Syler’s setting of Charles Anthony Silvestri’s “When All Falls Silent.”

Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit finearts.sfasu.edu. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.