Everything Nac

The Electric Guitar Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University will perform a varied program ranging from jazz standards to Christmas favorites when the student group performs at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7, in the Music Recital Hall, Wright Music Building, on the SFA campus.

Directed by School of Music faculty member Larry Greer, the ensemble will perform works by Duke Ellington, Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Antônio Carlos Jobim and others, along with a Peruvian folk song and popular selections by Henry Mancini and Roy Orbison.

Wright Music Building is located at 2210 Alumni Drive.

Concert admission is free. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.

The combined choirs at Stephen F. Austin State University will present the annual Seasonal Celebration concert at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 9, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus.

The annual holiday event features the Singin’ Axes and Kantorei choirs with Dr. Tod Fish, conductor; and the A Cappella Choir with Dr. Michael Murphy, conductor. Graduate student conductors are Tate Ashby of Lufkin and Ryan Herriage of Sulphur Springs.

The highlight of this year’s concert is a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Choral Fantasy,” op. 80, conducted by Murphy and featuring Dr. Minhae Lee, pianist; and soloists Professors Debbie Berry and Nita Hudson; Drs. Ric Berry and Scott LaGraff; guest Cole Jones and student Frankie Barraza, Borger senior.

The concert also features seasonal choral works of Camille Saint-Saëns, Felix Mendelssohn, Will Todd, André Thomas, Giuseppe Verdi, Benjamin Britten and more.

Griffith Fine Arts Building is located at 2222 Alumni Drive.

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 sfasu.edu/boxoffice. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.

The Symphony Orchestra at Stephen F. Austin State University will perform Dimitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5, in W.M. Turner Auditorium, located on the SFA campus.

Arguably the most famous of Shostakovich’s works, his Symphony No. 5 came at a pivotal moment after Shostakovich had displeased Soviet Union Premier Joseph Stalin with his opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District.”

Dr. Gregory Grabowski, director of orchestral activities for the SFA School of Music and the Symphony Orchestra’s conductor, considers Symphony No. 5 an “epic” work.

“I chose this piece because it is exciting, beautiful, incredibly challenging and fun to perform,” Grabowski said. “With a number of our senior music education students leaving to do their student teaching in the spring semester, this piece is my way of sending off our students and giving them one last epic performance as they complete their undergraduate degree. Shostakovich 5 is a bucket-list piece for so many of our students, and this performance will be one our students and our audience will remember.”

Turner Auditorium is located in the Griffith Fine Arts Building, 2222 Alumni Drive.

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 sfasu.edu/boxoffice. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.