Everything Nac

Mezzo soprano Dianna Grabowski will be a featured soloist when the Pineywoods Camerata performs at 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 6, in Cole Concert Hall on the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University.

The Pineywoods Camerata is an SFA faculty-led, conductorless chamber orchestra, dedicated to period-informed performances of Baroque music, according to Dr. Jennifer Dalmas, professor of violin and viola in the School of Music and member of the ensemble.

“This is the first Pineywoods Camerata performance in four years, so we are excited to finally have this concert again,” Dalmas said.

Grabowski will perform as vocal soloist for BWV 170 by J.S. Bach. Described as “glamorous” and “glowing-toned” by the Dallas Morning News, Grabowski is an active performer of music spanning the Renaissance through the 21st century. She states she “particularly values the collaborative nature of classical singing, be it in chamber music, oratorio, opera, choral music, early music or new music.” As a concert soloist, she has performed with such groups as le Violon d’Ingres (Paris), Santa Fe Pro Musica, Dallas Bach Society, Bourbon Baroque and the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus. Among her more recent performances are singing with the New York Philharmonic and Grammy award-winning vocal ensemble The Crossing in the world premiere of “Fire in My Mouth” by Julia Wolfe. Grabowski sings frequently with other professional choruses such as the Santa Fe Desert Chorale and the Grammy-nominated ensemble, Seraphic Fire. Her opera roles have included the title role in Jacques Offenbach’s “La Périchole “(with Opéra du Périgord), Diane in Jean-Philippe Rameau’s “Zéphyre” and Céphise in Rameau’s “Pygmalion” (with the Dallas Bach Society), and recently a workshop performance of a new operatic work by Leanna Kirchoff and Rachel J. Peters, “Friday after Friday.” She is married to Dr. Gregory Grabowski, conductor of the SFA Symphony Orchestra, and they reside in Nacogdoches with sons Ben and Sam.

The ensemble is composed of faculty and student string players and will also feature faculty members Christina Guenther, flute, and Graham Mackenzie, oboe, in the cantata, along with Grabowski. Maria Lyapkova will perform on harpsichord for each piece.

Other works on the program include “Merry” Suite in C major by Georg Philip Telemann and Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 4 by George Frederick Handel.

“Beginning with a stately overture, the Telemann suite is a charming collection of movements composed mostly in dance forms,” Dalmas said, adding that the Cantata BWV “Rest contented, beloved Soul” is “a beautiful work” for solo voice and orchestra, written in five movements that alternate between aria and recitative.”

Dalmas described the final piece on the program, the Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No 4, as “a wonderful example of Handel’s contribution to the genre, with its beautiful melodies and exciting fugal episodes.”

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.

Dornith Doherty, 2016 Texas State Artist – 2D and 2012 Guggenheim Foundation Fellow, will visit the Stephen F. Austin State University School of Art on Thursday, Feb. 3. As part of her visit, Doherty will offer a public lecture on her work bridging art and science at 5 p.m. that day in the Lower Art Building, Room 106. The lecture is open to the public free of charge, and masks are strongly encouraged.

Doherty works with photography, video and scientific imaging to visualize the questions that are often left invisible when considering human entanglement in changing environments. Her project “Archiving Eden,” which documents and explores the collections of seed storage facilities around the world using both traditional photographs and x-ray images, was published in book form in 2017. Her current project, “Atlas of the Invisible,” incorporates images of migratory bird feathers and insect wings made with a scanning electron microscope to better understand the earth’s atmosphere. Selections of Doherty’s work are on view as part of an invitational exhibit, “Respire,” showing Jan. 25 through March 20 at The Cole Art Center @ The Old Opera House, 329 E. Main St., SFA’s art gallery in downtown Nacogdoches.

Doherty was born in Houston and received a B.A. cum laude from Rice University and a M.F.A. in photography from Yale University. She is a Distinguished Research Professor at the University of North Texas. In addition to the Guggenheim Fellowship, she has also received grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Japan Foundation, the Indiana Arts Commission, and the United States Department of the Interior, the University of North Texas, and the Houston Center for Photography.

Doherty’s visit is part of an interdisciplinary pilot project in Emerging Photographic Technologies, funded through the SFA President’s Innovation Fund. The pilot project has included collaborations between art, astronomy and biology, making images using drones, telescopes and microscopes.

For more information, contact the School of Art at (936) 468-5500.

Performer and educator Dr. Diana Allan, who earned a Master of Arts in vocal performance from Stephen F. Austin State University in 1989, will be installed as the president of the National Association of Teachers of Singing during the organization’s biennial business meeting on July 6 at the 57th National Conference in Chicago.

“NATS is fortunate to have so many talented professionals in our organization,” Executive Director Allen Henderson said in a press release from NATS. “I have full confidence that these elected officers will lead this organization forward with great conviction, talent and dedication to serving the NATS membership. The NATS staff and I are thrilled to work with these individuals for the next two years as we set forth on our continued path of success.”

Allan, a soprano, has appeared in operatic and concert performances throughout the Mid- and Southwest as well as Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and Brazil. In addition to her public performing, she has more than 30 years university-level teaching experience, including 26 years teaching at The University of Texas at San Antonio as well as a recent teaching assignment at Missouri Southern State University in her hometown of Joplin, Missouri.

Allan has students singing, teaching and working in the arts all over the country. Her students have been national finalists in the National Opera Association Competition, as regional Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions winners, and as a Presidential Scholar of the Arts and a National Federation of Music Club regional award winner.

Allan has been a NATS member for more than 40 years.

The Percussion Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University has been invited to perform at this year’s Texas Music Educators Association convention slated for Feb. 9 through 12 in San Antonio. Representing more than 17,000 current and future music educator members, TMEA works to support the future of music education in Texas.

The ensemble’s TMEA program will be presented in a preview concert at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus. The recital features works by Joe W. Moore, Francisco Perez, Andrea Venet and Andy Akiho. The Percussion Ensemble is directed by Dr. Brad Meyer, director of percussion studies at SFA, with Dr. Jamie Vilseck, the ensemble’s coach.

Written in 2018, Moore’s “Ojo” was inspired by Latin folklore with a goal of keeping the audience engaged with quick passages, rhythmic variety, timbre changes, and movements transitioning between instruments, giving the performers “ojo” (meaning “evil eye”) because “there is no other option but to watch and listen intently,” according to Moore.

“Ephemera” was inspired by the Lamar University students of Perez during the past two years of the pandemic. “After almost two years without composing any original music for percussion, witnessing the grit and hard work from my students at Lamar University over the course of the eventful 2020-2021 year inspired me to write this short but deeply meaningful piece for mallet sextet,” he wrote.

Venet’s “Omnes Trio,” Latin for “Trio for All,” was written as an expression to promote equality within the percussion field, according to the composer. “With homogeneous instrumentation and a shared set-up, the piece is characterized by hocketed rhythmic lines, trading grooves between players, and soloistic passages that create rapidly flowing textures and quasi-melodic lines,” Venet wrote.

Akiho’s “to wALk Or ruN in wEst harlem” was originally written for chamber ensemble (flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, vibes and drums) and premiered at the 2008 Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival. Akiho said 2008 was one of the most influential and fortunate years of his life, but it began “hilariously tumultuous.”

“Within the span of 48 hours, I carelessly threw myself into multiple ridiculously unfortunate New York City situations – illegally parking my car under a suspicious overpass only to find it completely trashed and inoperable after being broken into; nearly slicing my thumb off cutting carrots with an ironically dull knife; and being attacked and stabbed by a gang while cluelessly walking home from the Manhattan School of Music after a late-night practice session,” he wrote. “This seven-minute composition depicts that particular evening expressed as a nonlinear soundtrack: escaping the attack, following the perpetrators in a taxi, trying to convince the apathetic cops to help me find the suspects, and the hospital monitor beeps of the emergency room are some of the themes in the music narration. Balancing out the NYC karma later that year, I found an old upright piano on the same corner where I was attacked. With the help of a friendly bystander, I pushed the piano up the hill to my apartment and composed this piece on it.”

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.