FSU Brass Ensemble Concert

DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC PRESENTS STUDENT RECITAL SERIESFSU Department of Music presents the Student Recital Series, held 3 times a semester on Wednesdays at 3pm. The recitals feature various music students performing solo works, along with occasional duo, trio or small ensemble pieces. The recitals are free and open to the public.PROGRAM for today's recital:Chassady Redhead, violin, & Nick Mellen, guitar: “Serenade” by Franz SchubertBen Alvey, vibraphone: “Des pas sur la neige“ (Footsteps in the snow), from Préludes, Book I by Claude DebussyEileen Martin, mezzo-soprano, & Dr. Joseph Yungen, piano: “Damask Roses”, from 7 Elizabethan Lyrics by Roger Quilter, and “O mio babbino caro”, from Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo PucciniLeah Boggs, violin, & Dr. Joseph Yungen, piano: “Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 35” (I. Allegro moderato, II. Andante) by Oskar RiedingBryce Campbell, snare drum: “Etude No. 4” by Jacques DeléclusePatrick Godfrey, trumpet, & Dr. Joseph Yungen, piano: “Trumpet Concerto in E-flat major” (I. Allegro) by Joseph Haydn

CES at FSU Presents “Trailblazing Women of Country – A Tribute to Patsy, Loretta and Dolly”The Cultural Events Series at Frostburg State University will present “Trailblazing Women of Country – A Tribute to Patsy, Loretta and Dolly” on Thursday, May 2, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center.Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton revolutionized country music and blazed a trail for future generations of female artists. With their chart-topping hits and record-breaking sales, they wove threads of contemporary womanhood throughout the tapestry of country music, resulting in unprecedented commercial success and earning each a place in the Country Music Hall of Fame.Miko Marks, Country Music Television’s Next Women of Country Class of 2022, and Nashville-based singer Kristina Train will join a five-member all-female band to celebrate how Cline, Lynn and Parton harnessed country music’s rich storytelling tradition to offer a uniquely empowered perspective on themes faced by women of their day.Tickets are $35 for adults; $31.50 for FSU employees, members of the military and youth under 18; and free for FSU students.For more information, visit the CES webpage at ces.frostburg.edu or contact the University box office at 1-866-849-9237 or 301-687-3137. The box office, located in the FSU Lane University Center, is open Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.CES is supported in part by the Maryland State Arts Council (msac.org), the Allegany Arts Council and the City of Frostburg.

FSU’s Department of Music to Present Dr. Brent Weber in Faculty Artist Series Concert, “React”Frostburg State University’s Department of Music will present saxophonist and tenor Dr. Brent Weber in a Faculty Artist Series concert on Friday, May 3, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center. He will be accompanied by the FSU Faculty Jazz Combo and the FSU Saxophone Quartet. The concert is free and open to the public. This event will also be livestreamed; click the “Join Stream” button on this page a few minutes before the recital is scheduled to begin, or any time during the recital, to view the live performance.In addition to Weber, the Faculty Jazz Combo includes Dr. Donald Albrecht on trumpet, Tom Harrison on piano, Peter Lewis on bass and Dr. Mackenzie LaMont on drums, and the FSU Saxophone Quartet includes soprano Raegan Barrett, alto Gabe Hicks and baritone Eileen Martin.The concert will feature “Pitch Black” by Jacob ter Veldhuis, “My Funny Valentine” by Richard Rogers, “Donna Lee” by Charlie Parker, “Sandu” by Clifford Brown, “Gertrude’s Bounce” by Bud Powell, “A Remark You Made” by Joe Zawinul and “Wayne’s Thang” by Kenny Garrett.“Pitch Black,” for sax quartet and audio, was composed in 1998. The audio track reproduces the voice of trumpet player Chet Baker, from one of the last interviews before his tragic death by falling from an Amsterdam hotel room window in 1988. Baker talks about his past as a drug addict and his life in prison, his first audition with jazz saxophonist, band leader and composer Parker and playing without drums.“My Funny Valentine” is a show tune from the 1937 Rodgers and Lorenz Hart coming-of-age musical “Babes in Arms.” The song became a popular jazz standard, appearing on more than 1,300 albums performed by more than 600 artists.“Donna Lee” is a bebop jazz standard attributed to Parker, although Miles Davis has also claimed authorship. Written in A-flat, it is based on the chord changes of the jazz standard “(Back Home Again in) Indiana.” Beginning with an unusual half-bar rest, “Donna Lee” is a very complex, fast-moving chart.Brown’s “Sandu” has long been a jam-session staple for anyone who wants to shred some E-flat blues. The familiar melody is featured with a trumpet and tenor sax duet at the top of the tune and returns with the duet at the end. “Sandu” also includes written or improvised solos for tenor sax and trumpet with a great “rhythm out” interlude between the solos. There’s also an excellent sax section solo and a roaring shout chorus before the recap.The lesser-known Powell composition, “Gertrude’s Bounce,” features an upbeat melody and happy-go-lucky style that works well for a jazz ensemble.“A Remark You Made” is a composition by Zawinul, one of the founders of Weather Report, and is included on the band’s seventh album, “Heavy Weather,” released in 1977. It would prove to be the band’s most commercially successful album.“Wayne’s Thang” is from “Sketches of MD: Live at The Iridium,” one of the few live albums by Garrett, released in 2008. The “MD” of the title track refers to Garrett’s old bandleader, Miles Davis.For more information, contact FSU’s Department of Music at 301-687-4109.

Frostburg State University’s Department of Music Presents Wind Ensemble in “Full Circle”Frostburg State University’s Department of Music will present its Wind Ensemble, conducted by Peter Lewis, in its concert, “Full Circle,” on Sunday, May 5, at 3 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center.The program will include “joyRiDe” (2005) by Michael Markowski, the world premiere of “Pan” (2023) by Brian McClosky, “When Jesus Wept” (1956/1959) by William Schumann, “Full Circle” (2019) by Viet Cuong, “Silver Fanfare” (2023) by JaRod Hall, “unBroken” (2021) by Randall Standridge and “The Melody Shop” (1910) by Karl King.“joyRiDE” is a two-and-a-half-minute concert opener that borrows Beethoven’s infamous melody and dresses it in a tie-dye blazer of rhythm and texture that nod humbly to John Adams’ “Short Ride in a Fast Machine.” This version is a healthy balance between preserving what Markowski’s 18-year-old self musically intended while maximizing the piece’s playability.“Pan” seems like a bit of a tambourine concerto in moments. The piece is dedicated in memory of McClosky’s cousin Mike, a comic and jokester who teased that he wanted to be in the composer’s bands and always said he could play a tambourine. The mythical character Pan fit Mike’s playful persona. McClosky used Robert Frost’s poem “Pan With Us” as inspiration as well. The line “the world found new terms of worth” is especially meaningful, with Mike leaving the world too young and, in the poem, Pan doesn’t know what to play in the end.“When Jesus Wept” is a transcription by Schumann from his “New England Triptych: Three Pieces for Orchestra After William Billings,” of which this piece is the second movement. Schuman used the text of the hymn in its original round form. The movement bookends with field drum, solo euphonium and solo cornet. Their phrase quickly grows into a full ensemble chorale. Schuman takes Billings’ traditional harmony and adds his own 20th-century polytonal interpretation to the chorale.“Full Circle” spins the iconic “circle of fifths” chord progression into a brazen, reverberant sound world, where both keys and instrumental colors are sequentially cycled through. Cuong thinks that the musical sequences like the circle of fifths symbolize the circular sequences of events in our lives, i.e., while we might travel far, comfort can be found by circling back to where we began.“Silver Fanfare” was a winning compositions for a call for fanfares for brass and premiered by the Dallas Winds. The composition was originally composed for full wind ensemble and later adapted for brass and percussion. The “silver” appearance of many brass instruments could have been the motivation for the title. The use of percussion adds to the rhythmic energy and excitement of the music that comes to a triumphant conclusion.Standridge composed “unBroken” to provide a starting place for productive discussions and be another tool that will help knock down the social barriers that prevent those that need help from seeking it. He dedicated it to his parents and all of the people and families who live with the challenges of mental illness.King wrote “The Melody Shop” at age 19. It is a circus march dedicated to the owners of Powell Music Company Melody Shop in Canton, Ohio, where King was living between tours with Robinson’s Famous Shows. It is notorious for its difficult euphonium part.Tickets are $10 for adults; $5 for members of the military, seniors, and FSU faculty and staff; and free for students and children. Tickets are available at the University box office in the Lane Center Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., by phone at 301-687-3137 or online at https://frostburgtix.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=2041. Tickets will also be available at the door on the afternoon of the concert.For more information, contact FSU’s Department of Music at 301-687-4109.

FSU’s Department of Music Presents Dr. Mackenzie Jacob LaMont in Faculty Artist Series Concert, “DRUMS (mostly)”Frostburg State University’s Department of Music will present percussionist Dr. Mackenzie Jacob LaMont in his Faculty Artist Series concert, “DRUMS (mostly),” on Wednesday, May 8, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center. The concert is free and open to the public. This event will also be livestreamed; click the “Join Stream” button on this page a few minutes before the recital is scheduled to begin, or any time during the recital, to view the live performance.The program will feature LaMont on drums ... mostly. Listeners are invited to sink into the layers of mathematics found in pounding hand drums and timpani, to become immersed in a surround-sound bass drum experience and to listen as one of the oldest recorded drum rhythms in existence winds its way through the evening, slowly degrading until it is unrecognizable. There are sure to be a few surprises along the way.LaMont is an active composer, percussion performer, music educator and music industry/audio recording specialist. His recent compositions have been focused on the environment as well as political and philosophical issues, with the sound world inhabiting a space somewhere between minimalism and post-progressive rock with dashes of polystylism. LaMont has a doctorate in music composition with a cognate in percussion from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. He is an assistant professor at FSU where he teaches percussion lessons and ensemble, composition lessons and courses, and various courses within the music industry track.For more information, contact FSU’s Department of Music at 301-687-4109.

FSU’s Department of Music Presents Percussion Ensemble RecitalFrostburg State University’s Department of Music will present its Percussion Ensemble, directed by Dr. Mackenzie Jacob LaMont, in its spring performance on Friday, May 10, at 7:30 p.m. in the Pealer Recital Hall of FSU’s Woodward D. Pealer Performing Arts Center.Percussion Ensemble students include Benjamin Alvey, Gavin Baker, Leah Boggs, Bryce Campbell, Jacob Deaver, Grace Giles, Jacob Hunt, Jacob Hutzell, Joseph Louie, Eileen Martin, Bella McConnell, Joe Rubens and Julia Seddon. They will be joined by guest performers Dr. Joseph Yungen, Peter Lewis and Riess Mikula.The concert will include “Crown of Thorns” by David Maslanka, “Living Room Music” by John Cage, “Percussion Music” by Michael Colgrass and much more.The title “Crown of Thorns” is an obvious reference to Christ’s crown of thorns, but the name first came to Maslanka as a possible title for a piece after seeing a plant called the Crown of Thorns at the New York Botanical Gardens. Crown of Thorns is a thorny desert plant from the Middle East. The rambling, interweaving, vine-like stems suggested music to him. As he meditated on the words crown of thorns and the plant, and on the idea of a work for keyboard percussion ensemble, one image that arose was a seven-starred halo. The seven-starred halo is a transcended image of the crown of thorns, the crown of highest spiritual power arrived at through the greatest depth of suffering. The imagery is Christian, but the experience transcends religion, and is universal. The music is at times sober and reflective, but more often filled with a liberated energy and joy.One of the most influential 20th century composers, Cage pioneered a body of music that he described as “the contemporary transition from keyboard-influenced music to the all-sound music of the future.” “Living Room Music” is a piece Cage composed in 1940. It is a quartet for unspecified instruments, all of which may be found in a living room of a typical house, hence the title. “Living Room Music” is dedicated to Cage's then-wife Xenia. The work consists of four movements: “To Begin,” “Story,” “Melody” and “End.” Cage instructs the performers to use any household objects or architectural elements as instruments and gives examples: magazines, cardboard, “largish books,” floor, the wooden frame of a window, etc. The first and last movements are percussion music for said instruments. In the second movement, the performers transform into a speech quartet; the music consists entirely of pieces of Gertrude Stein’s short poem “The World Is Round” (1938) spoken or sung. The third movement is optional. It includes a melody played by one of the performers on “any suitable instrument.”“Percussion Music” (1952) was written while Colgrass was a sophomore at the University of Illinois. After using up all his jazz drum solo ideas in “Three Brothers,” he knew he needed to look outside of jazz for inspiration and decided to experiment with a Bach-like counterpoint on drums without specific pitches. He created a “keyboard” of 16 sounds from low drums to high temple blocks that were divided among four players. Since Bach’s music was non-percussive, Colgrass intended the work to be a gentle and melodic form of drumming, providing percussionists with a feeling of musical equality and respectability with classical musicians. The toy drum part was written for cardboard-shelled toy drums. These toy drums or “timp-toms” had a very clear pitch and a long decay and inspired Colgrass to write other works for drums with specific pitches. The part is often played on roto-toms.Admission is $10 for adults; $5 for seniors, members of the military and FSU faculty and staff; and free for students and children. Tickets are available at the University box office in the Lane Center Mondays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., by phone at 301-687-3137 or online at https://frostburgtix.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=2043. Tickets will also be available at the door on the evening of the concert.For more information, contact FSU’s Department of Music at 301-687-4109.