Everything Nac

Voice students at Stephen F. Austin State University rehearse a scene from Giacomo Puccini’s “Gianni Schicchi” as part of the School of Music’s 2022 Opera Theater production. One-act operas “Gianni Schicchi” and “Gallantry: A Soap Opera” by Douglas Moore, along with the chorus scene “Stomp Your Foot” from “The Tender Land” by Aaron Copland, are the featured works to be presented at 7:30 nightly Thursday through Saturday, March 31 through April 2, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus. Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for seniors and $8 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, visit finearts.sfasu.edu or call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407. For more information about the opera, contact the School of Music at (936) 468-4602.

The Trombone Choir at Stephen F. Austin State University will perform along with smaller ensembles, including trombone quartets and an octet, on a concert at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

The choir is directed by Dr. Deb Scott, professor of trombone in the School of music, and Luke Vacca, adjunct professor. The program features “Suite for Trombones” by Michael Hennagin and “Zenith” by James C. Edwards. “Zenith” will be performed by the SFA Octet as the students prepare for an invited performance of the work at the International Trombone Festival on July 14 in Conway, Arkansas. Edwards composed “Zenith” in 1981, and it is dedicating it to Scott’s first trombone professor, Robert Deahl, who was a professor at Texas Tech University. Donations are being accepted to help defray the octet’s travel expenses to the festival.

The 20-member group will also perform the trombone choir standard, “Canzona for 8 Trombones” by Walter Hartley.

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.

Works by Ivan Trevino, David Skidmore and Francisco Perez are among the program selections to be showcased when the Percussion Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University presents its final spring concert of 2022 at 7:30 p.m. Monday, April 4, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.

Directed by Dr. Brad Meyer, associate professor of percussion in the SFA School of Music, the ensemble will also perform works by Dave Hall, Chad Floyd, Mark Ford, Michael Laurello and SFA’s Dr. Jamie Vilseck, percussion adjunct faculty member.

Vilseck’s “Starfall” is a mallet quintet with optional piano that was composed for the LaSalle High School Percussion Ensemble in 2021. The title, according to Vilseck, “reflects a sense of wonder one has while staring up into the sky and appreciating the beauty of the stars.”

“Utilizing a complex but alluring harmony, this mallet quintet shows how the combination of many simple patterns can combine to create a wondrous texture, similar to how each individual star helps to create the night sky,” Vilseck said.

Other works on the program include Hall’s “Tilted Sphere,” Trevino’s “Shared Space,” Floyd’s Triptych Boom,” featuring senior music education major Noah Stephens, and Laurello’s “Spine,” featuring senior music education major Davis Carr.

Also on the program, Skidmore’s “Torched and Wrecked” is part of a series of pieces titled “Aliens With Extraordinary Abilities,” a 35-minute, seven-movement electro-acoustic piece.

“Time Dilation” by Perez was inspired by the astronomical theory that time is not an absolute unit of measure in the universe; rather time dilation indicates that the faster an object in the universe travels, the more the “experience” of time is affected (slower) compared to another object in a different environment.

“‘Time Dilation’ is the result of my light exploration of this effect,” Perez wrote. “Initiating with a five-count riff, the work’s main motif permeates through a variety of harmonic and polyrhythmic structures to create an energetic atmosphere, dilating back and forth between metric feels.”

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.

A relatively new exotic scale pest, bark scale is threatening the utility and aesthetics of crape myrtles in the urban landscapes of Texas and surrounding states. Gu, who leads the multidisciplinary, multistate effort to manage this type of bark scale, will present a brief history of the pest in Texas and surrounding areas, as well as discuss its symptoms, life cycle and extermination.

Gu earned her doctorate in plant sciences and horticulture from the University of Arkansas and worked as an assistant professor at Mississippi State University before moving to Texas in 2012. The liaison between the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service and the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association, Gu serves on the TNLA Education Committee and the Parks and Patio Task Force. In addition to crape myrtle bark scale, her research interests include sustainable practices in horticulture production and landscapes, such as container substrate research.

The Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series is held the second Thursday of each month. It is preceded by an attendee social at 6:30 p.m., and a rare plant raffle will follow the program. The lecture is free and open to the public, but donations to the Theresa and Les Reeves Lecture Series fund are always appreciated.

Parking is available at the PNPC and Raguet Elementary School, located at 2428 Raguet St.

For more information, call (936) 468-4129 or email sfagardens@sfasu.edu.