Music

Dec. 2, 2015 — The Allegheny Choirs, under the direction of James D. Niblock, will perform a free concert at 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, December 5 in Shafer Auditorium at Allegheny College. The Allegheny College Chorus, Chamber Choir, Women’s Ensemble, Men’s Ensemble and Choir will each perform several short works, and the groups will collaborate to close the performance as a massed choir of 140 voices.

With each choir contributing an eclectic assortment of classical works and seasonal selections, listeners can enjoy choral sounds in seven languages spanning five centuries of choral tradition. Highlights will include a number of holiday favorites such as the Ukrainian Carol of the Bells, Gloucestershire Wassail and the traditional carol for the presentation of a Boar’s Head at holiday feasts.

Lesser-known works of the season draw attention to music as a cultural meeting place. Written by Jean de Brebeuf, the stirring Huron Carol was a gift from the Jesuit priest to the Wendat people with whom Brebeuf lived near the settlement of Quebec. In a similar vein, Gaspar Fernandes transcribed a Guinean Christmas song performed by African converts in the European colonies of central America and Mexico.

Other featured works will include Hugo Wolf’s setting of the dramatic story of the fire-rider — a mythical figure who rode atop his horse into innumerable fires to squelch the flames. C.V. Standford’s setting of The Blue Bird is also a staple of the repertoire and will be performed by the Chamber Choir. Though less well-known, Schubert’s setting of La Pastorella is a notable addition to the program and a charming example of the composer’s writing in choral songs.

Collaborating with the choirs are pianists Kevin Dill, music director at First Presbyterian Church, and Allegheny Professor Emeritus of Music Ward Jamison. In addition to dazzling piano accompaniments, the audience can expect to hear percussion, handbells and an array of student soloists augmenting the work of the ensembles.

Admission is free and open to the public. Audience members are encouraged to use the balcony as well as the main floor of the auditorium.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Nov. 16, 2015 – Allegheny College student chamber ensembles will present a free recital at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, November 20 in the college’s Ford Chapel.

Performing will be the Flute Ensemble, Clarinet Ensemble, Saxophone Ensemble, Trumpet Ensemble and Woodwind Quintet. The program will include music by Gustav Holst, Eric Ewazen, Gioachino Rossini, Henry Mancini, Andrejs Jansons, Samuel Adler and Savario Mercadente, as well as several traditional tunes.

Faculty coaches are Jennifer Dearden for the Trumpet Ensemble, Bronwell Bond for the Flute Ensemble and Julie Hepler for the Saxophone Ensemble, Clarinet Ensemble and Woodwind Quintet.

The 32 students who will perform are all members of the college’s Wind Symphony and/or the Civic Symphony.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Nov. 16, 2015 — The Allegheny College Wind Symphony will present its 2015 Fall Concert on Sunday, November 22 at 3:15 p.m. in the college’s Shafer Auditorium. Admission is free of charge. The Saxophone and Flute Ensembles will provide pre-concert music in the Campus Center lobby.

The Wind Symphony is under the direction of Lowell Hepler, professor of music and chair of the Department of Music. The featured trumpet soloists for the concert are Allegheny College juniors William Hawkins, Jacob Patterson and Kevin Simpson.

The Wind Symphony is an 80-member symphonic band, with membership open by audition to all Allegheny College students. Wind Symphony students have been honored at the state level through acceptance to the Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Band and at the national level through acceptance to the National Small College Intercollegiate Band and the National Wind Ensemble at Carnegie Hall.

Sunday’s program includes the premiere performance of “Crimson, Blue and White,” a march written by Ronald Stitt, assistant director of bands at Allegheny. The march is based on the fight song for Ft. LeBoeuf High School, where Stitt taught for many years before his retirement.

Works by two additional western Pennsylvania composers are on the program: Jack Stamp’s “Junket” and Sam Hazo’s “Arabesque.”

The symphony will also play “Fanfare: A Vision and a Dream,” by Ryan Nowlin; “Fantasia in G Major,” a work for organ transcribed for symphonic band by R.F. Goldman; “Bugler’s Holiday,” for three trumpet soloists with band; “Second Suite in F for Military Band,” by Gustav Holst; Frank Ticheli’s “An American Elegy,” written for the Columbine High School Wind Ensemble in memory of those who lost their lives there on April 20, 1999; “Molly on the Shore,” by Percy Grainger; and “Crosley March,” by Henry Fillmore.

Will Hawkins is a mathematics major and music minor at Allegheny. From Steelton, Pennsylvania, he is a student of Jennifer Dearden. In addition to the Wind Symphony, Hawkins has been a member of the Wind Ensemble, Civic Symphony, Jazz Band, Trumpet Ensemble and Brass Quintet.

A chemistry major with minors in biology and political science, Jacob Patterson is from Wexford, Pennsylvania. He is also a member of the Wind Ensemble, Civic Symphony and Trumpet Ensemble. He is the treasurer of Amnesty International, the vice-president of the college’s chemistry club and a Chemistry Ambassador for the American Chemical Society.

A native of Meadville and a biochemistry major and music minor, Kevin Simpson is a student of Jennifer Dearden. He is also a member of the Wind Ensemble, Civic Symphony, Jazz Combo, Jazz Band and Trumpet Ensemble, as well as the French Creek Brass Quintet and Diamond in the Rough. He was a member of the 2015 National Small College Intercollegiate Band and of the 2014 and 2015 Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Bands.

Lowell Hepler is director of bands at Allegheny College. He has served as a guest conductor for honor bands ranging from County through All-State levels, and as an adjudicator for PMEA Music Assessments.

Hepler recently retired from his position as Principal Tuba with the Erie Philharmonic Orchestra. He remains the Principal Tuba for the Lake Erie Ballet Company.

He has served as President of the Pennsylvania Collegiate Bandmasters Association and the Pennsylvania Chapter of Phi Beta Mu, Honorary Bandmasters Fraternity. He has also served as the Pennsylvania state chair of the College Band Directors National Association.

Hepler was the 2010 recipient of the Nu Chapter, Phi Beta Mu Bandmaster of the Year Award and the 2013 Julian Ross Award for Excellence in Teaching.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Nov. 13, 2015 — Stephen Anderson and Kyle Murphy, students in the Department of Music at Allegheny College, will present their senior percussion recital on Monday, November 23, at 7 p.m. in the college’s Shafer Auditorium. The public is invited to this free performance, with seating on stage with the performers.

The program includes works by John Beck, Jessica Muniz, Johann Sebastian Bach, George Frideric Handel, Morris Goldenberg, Richard Peterson and James L. Moore.

Wendy Plyler is the piano accompanist for the recital. Anderson and Murphy are percussion students of Stephen F. Corsi.

Photo by Aleäa Rae

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Nov. 5, 2015 – Pianist Douglas Jurs, assistant professor of music at Allegheny College, will present a free recital at 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, November 14 in the college’s Ford Chapel.

The program will include the “Children’s Corner Suite,” by Claude Debussy; Impromptus, Op. 90, by Franz Schubert; Sonata No. 9, Op. 68, “Black Mass,” by Alexander Scriabin; and “Banjo Quickstep,” by Anthony Philip Heinrich.

Jurs, who is in his first year on the faculty at Allegheny College, has performed throughout North America, Europe and beyond.

Recent performances include a two-week residency in India as a guest of Kolkata Classics, where Jurs presented several collaborative concerts in Kolkata and Jamshedpur, as well as master classes and private lessons for students at the Calcutta School of Music.

Of one of his performances there, The Telegraph wrote, “The performance was spectacular … the pianists had reached a level of near telepathic coordination.” The newspaper went on to note that Jurs was “as impressive as a teacher as he is a performer.”

While on the faculty at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, Georgia, Jurs performed all over the Southeast with colleagues from throughout the state, including principal musicians from the Albany and Valdosta symphonies.

With violinist Brent Williams, member of the award-winning Enhake Quartet, Jurs formed Duo Antheil, a group committed to exploring the diversity of American music for violin and piano.

Other recent partners include members of the Azalea String Quartet, New York pianist Tanya Gabrielian, University of Georgia trumpet professor Brandon Craswell and the internationally acclaimed Present Music Ensemble.

Jurs received his degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Cleveland Institute of Music and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where he double majored in piano and English literature and was a Friends of Music Fellow.

He lives in Meadville with his wife and two children.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

April 20, 2015 – The Allegheny College Percussion Ensemble will perform their annual spring concert on Monday, April 27 at 7:30 p.m. on the stage of Shafer Auditorium. The concert is free and open to the public. Audience seating will be on the auditorium stage.

The ensemble’s repertoire includes blues, body percussion, classical, avant garde, African chant and contemporary. Performance compositions include “Overture for Percussion Ensemble,” “Blues by Five (Ten),” “Toccata Without Instruments,” “Call of the Drums,” “Ostinato Pianissimo,” “Peter Gunn,” “Rondo ala Turk,” “A La Samba” and “Who Let That Snare Drummer In?”

The Percussion Ensemble features 10 student performers. Stephen F. Corsi conducts.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

April 20, 2015 – Three free concerts at Allegheny College this weekend will showcase the talents of students, faculty and additional members of the Meadville community. Student chamber ensembles will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 24 in Ford Chapel. The Civic Symphony will perform at 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 25 in Shafer Auditorium. And the Wind Symphony and Wind Ensemble will perform at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, April 26 in Shafer Auditorium.

Friday’s chamber ensemble recital will feature brass, woodwind and string ensembles. The program includes music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Gustav Holst, Charles Gounod, Johann Pachelbel and Anatoly Liadov, among others. Lowell Hepler coaches the brass quintet; Julie Hepler coaches the saxophone ensemble, clarinet ensemble and the woodwind quintet; and Vince Scacchetti coaches and performs in a string quartet and a violin/viola duo.

Cellist and Allegheny College senior Joseph Tonzo will be the featured soloist on Jules Massenet’s “Meditation from Thais” at Saturday’s Civic Symphony concert. The program will also include “A Festival Prelude” by Alfred Reed, Symphony #8 by Franz Schubert, “Hymn and Fuguing Tune #2” by Henry Cowell, “Blue Tango” by LeRoy Anderson and “Sounds from Hollywood – A Medley of Famous Movie Songs,” arranged by Mary Gold. Ronald E. Stitt conducts.

The 85-member Wind Symphony and 40-member Wind Ensemble, which perform on Sunday, are under the direction of Professor of Music Lowell Hepler. The soloists will be mallet percussionists Stephen Anderson, Kyle Murphy and Stephen Corsi in “Serenade for a Picket Fence.” Sunday’s program also includes Henry Fillmore’s march “His Honor,” Frank Ticheli’s “Rest” and “Postcard to Meadville,” John Barnes Chance’s “Incantation and Dance,” Aaron Copland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” Camille De Nardis’ “The Universal Judgment,” Bruce Broughton’s “Silverado” and Thomas Knox’s symphonic band arrangement of “God of Our Fathers.”

Photo: Wind Symphony. Photo by Bill Owen

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

The Allegheny College Chamber Strings and the Select Strings will perform works by Mozart, Albeniz, Corrette and Schneider. The ensembles, which include Allegheny students and faculty as well as members of the Meadville community, are under the direction of Vincent Scacchetti.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

Seven members of the Allegheny College Wind Symphony participated in the 68th Annual Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Band, held at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania March 6-8. In addition, one of them was accepted to the National Small College Intercollegiate Band, held at Vanderbilt University March 25-28. The Pennsylvania Intercollegiate Band is the oldest intercollegiate band in the country. All collegiate band members from Pennsylvania are eligible to submit resumes and director recommendations, from which a selection committee chooses each year’s band. Representing Allegheny at the 2015 ICB were clarinetists Lora Waybright ’16, Kelly Pohland ’15, and Melissa Ruszczyk ’16; Daniel Kerschner ’16 on baritone saxophone; Kevin Simpson ’16 on trumpet; Christopher Nardi ’15 on euphonium; and percussionist Kyle Murphy ’16. They joined with 95 other student musicians to form a 102-member band that represented some of the finest student musicians from the state. They were accompanied by Director of Bands Lowell Hepler and Assistant Professor of Music Julie Hepler. Students from the U.S. and Canada are eligible to submit resumes in application for the National Small College Intercollegiate Band, which is a biannual event held at the College Band Directors National Association Conference. Kevin Simpson, trumpet, was selected to be part of the 2015 ensemble at Vanderbilt. Also taking part in the event were Professors Lowell and Julie Hepler, along with Assistant Director of Bands Ronald Stitt.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research

March 26, 2015 — The Allegheny College Jazz Band will perform their annual spring concert on Sunday, April 12 at 3:15 p.m. in the lobby of the college’s Campus Center. The concert is free and open to the public.

The program features swing, funk, rock, ballad and jazz. Compositions include “Pick Up the Pieces,” “Something,” “Misty,” “Chameleon,” “Soul Man,” “Gospel John,” “Saxes With Attitude,” “Moonlight Serenade,” “On Broadway,” “I Just Called to Say, I Love You,” “Stormy Weather” and “Peter Gunn.” Instrumental soloists and a vocal soloist will be showcased.

The ensemble, made up of 22 students and two faculty members, is under the direction of Stephen F. Corsi.

Prior to the Jazz Band performance, the Jazz Improvisation class, under the direction of James Froman, will perform blues and jazz music.

Source: Academics, Publications & Research