Concert flyer for Bandfest 2008: "Mi Alma Latina"

Wind Ensemble and Mustang Marching Band pictured

Annual Bandfest Concert to Feature the Sounds, Rhythms of Latin Music Nov. 15

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- More than two hundred collegiate musicians will bring the fascinating rhythms of Spain, Cuba and Central and South America to Cal Poly at 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, in Harman Hall in the Performing Arts Center’s Christopher Cohan Center.

The annual Bandfest concert features the Cal Poly Wind Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and the Pride of the Pacific Mustang Marching Band in an evening of musical pageantry titled “Mi Alma Latina” (“My Latin Soul”).

The combined forces of the Wind Orchestra and Wind Ensemble will perform the West Coast premiere of Robert W. Smith’s Symphony No. 3, “Don Quixote," a major work for large wind band based the novel written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The composer is planning to be present for the premiere.

Other highlights will include Alberto Ginastera's “Danza Finale,” Alfred Reed's “El Camino Real,” Donald Grantham's “Baron Cimetére’s Mambo,” Stephen Melillo's “Cuba,” John Mackey's “Red Line Tango” and John Texidor's “Amparita Roca.”

The 120-member Mustang Marching Band, conducted by head drum major Justin Paulson and assistant drum major Jeffrey Brown, will present a stage version of some of its half-time shows, including excerpts from the band’s Beatles show, Latin show, dance show and Halloween show.

Cal Poly Director of Bands William Johnson and Associate Director of Bands Christopher Woodruff will conduct the Wind Orchestra and Wind Ensemble.

Bandfest is sponsored by Cal Poly’s Music Department, College of Liberal Arts, and Instructionally Related Activities program. Tickets are $8 to $19 and are on sale at the Performing Arts Ticket Office 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. To order by phone, call SLO-ARTS (756-2787). Discounts are given to patrons who buy tickets to four or more Music Department events for 2008-2009

For more information, call the Music Department at 756-2406.

Concert flyer for the Early Music Ensemble

Image of a mission with photos of conductor Thomas Davies and musicologist Craig Russell

Cal Poly Early Music Ensemble to Present Music of California Missions Jan. 24

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Cal Poly’s Early Music Ensemble will present works of the California missions at 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 24, in the Pavilion of the Performing Arts Center’s Christopher Cohan Center at Cal Poly.

The concert, titled “Masters of the Mission,” will feature works that were reconstructed from the original sources in the missions by Cal Poly Music Professor and noted California mission music scholar Craig Russell. The Early Music Ensemble will be joined by a small instrumental group, including Russell on baroque guitar. Cal Poly Music Professor Thomas Davies will conduct the performance.

Some of the repertoire for the concert is drawn from the manuscripts of Juan Bautista Sancho, a friar at Mission San Antonio in the first decades of the 19th century, including a selection from his “Misa de Los Angeles” and “Credo” and “Sanctus” from “Misa en Sol.”

In addition, the ensemble will perform the mass “Misa del quarto tono para quatro voces” (“Mass in Mode four for four voices”). The music was found in the choirbooks of Narciso Durán, who served at Mission San José in the early 1800s.

Movements from masses by Ignacio de Jerusalem, the chapel master in Mexico City from 1750-1769, will also be performed, as well as a few selections in plainchant from the California choirbooks.

Works from the Corpus Christi processions will be included. Parades and ceremony were indispensable tools of the friars in their goal to convert the native Californians to the Christian faith, according to Russell, who calls some of the parade pieces “quite lovely and lilting.”

The group will also perform a selection of villancicos by Manuel de Sumaya. Villancicos are church pieces meant to imitate in style the music actually heard in popular culture in the plaza, ranch, field or city street.

Tickets are $12 for the public and $8 for seniors and students. They are on sale at the Performing Arts Ticket Office from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. To order by phone, call SLO- ARTS (756-2787).

The concert is sponsored by Cal Poly’s Music Department, College of Liberal Arts, and Instructionally Related Activities program. For more information, call the Music Department at 756-2406.

Concert flyer for 'Poems of E.E. Cummings' Lecture-Recital

Pictured left-to-right: Katherine Arthur, soprano; Kenneth Habib, composer; Susan Azaret Davies, piano

Cal Poly to Present Oct. 18 Lecture and Recital Featuring ‘Poems of E.E. Cummings’

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Cal Poly Music Department faculty members will present a lecture and recital titled “Poems of E.E. Cummings” at 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, in Room 218 of the Davidson Music Center on campus.

Katherine Arthur, soprano, and Susan Azaret Davies, piano, will perform songs composed by Cal Poly faculty member Kenneth S. Habib. Habib’s “Poems of E.E. Cummings” is a cycle of eight poems selected from across the career of Cummings and arranged in four pairs.

Before the recital, Habib will discuss the compositional design of the song cycle, and Arthur and Davies will give performance demonstrations, followed by the premiere of the entire cycle.

Arthur, who teaches voice at Cal Poly, has appeared as a soloist with the Southwest Chamber Music Ensemble, Santa Barbara Oratorio Society and Pacific Repertory Opera. As a guest artist in Europe, she recorded works for the Austrian Radio.

Davies has performed at the Oregon Bach Festival, Cabrillo Festival, Long Beach Bach Festival and San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival. She has also performed in concerts with the Gachinger Kantorei of Stuttgart, Germany, and the New York Philharmonic. She teaches piano and accompanies at Cal Poly and for the Cuesta Master Chorale.

Admission at the door will be $5 for the public and $2 for seniors and students.

The recital is sponsored by the Cal Poly Music Department and College of Liberal Arts. For more information, call 756-2406.

Concert flyer for "A Night at the Mission"

Cartoon-style image of white moon and stars on violet background

Cal Poly Student Ensembles to Play an Evening of Chamber Music At Old Mission Church

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Several of Cal Poly's finest student ensembles will perform traditional and contemporary chamber music at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, in the Old Mission Church in San Luis Obispo.

Performing at this annual event will be the Wind Quintets, Wind Dectet, Saxophone Quartets, Trombone Choir, Clarinet Quartet, String Quartet, Brass Quintet and Brass Ensemble.

Tickets are $8 and $10 and can be bought at the Performing Arts Ticket Office from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

To order tickets by phone, call 756-2787 (SLO-ARTS). A 10 percent discount is given to patrons who buy season tickets to four Music Department events through the Performing Arts Ticket office; a 15 percent discount is given on tickets to five or more events.

Tickets may also be purchased at the door the night of the concert.

For more information about the concert, contact the Cal Poly Music Department at 756-2406 or http://music.calpoly.edu. "A Night at the Mission" is sponsored by the Cal Poly Music Department, College of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities program.

Concert flyer for W. Terrence Spiller piano recital

Spiller pictured seated at piano

Pianist W. Terrence Spiller to Give Benefit Concert at Cal Poly Jan. 9

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Music Department Chair and pianist W. Terrence Spiller will give a benefit recital of works by Mozart, Ravel, Bartok and Liszt at 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 9, in the Spanos Theatre at Cal Poly.

The first half of Spiller's program will feature works by Mozart, opening with the Sonata in F Major, followed by the Fantasy in D minor, and concluding with the Sonata in D Major. The second half will open with Ravel's “Menuet Antique,” followed by Bartok's “15 Hungarian Peasant Songs,” and end with Liszt's “Tarantella” from his “Venezia e Napoli.”

Tickets to the recital are $6 for students and senior citizens and $10 for the public. They are on sale at the Performing Arts Ticket Office 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays.

Proceeds from the recital will benefit the Cal Poly Music Department Scholarship Fund. The recital is sponsored by the Music Department and College of Liberal Arts. For more information, call 756-2406.

Concert flyer for the Cal Poly Choirs "A Christmas Celebration" concert. Red floral background with holiday decorations: bells with "joy" and "peace" on them.

Cal Poly Choirs’ Dec. 6 ‘Christmas Celebration’ to Bring Holiday Cheer to Central Coast SAN LUIS OBISPO – The holiday season is coming a little early to the Central Coast, by way of the Cal Poly Choirs’ annual “A Christmas Celebration,” set for 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 6, in Harman Hall of the Christopher Cohan Center.

The University Singers, PolyPhonics and The Early Music Ensemble, conducted by Thomas Davies, will be joined by the Cal Poly Brass Ensemble, conducted by Christopher Woodruff. In addition the Cal Poly Barbershop Quartets and the a capella ensemble Take It SLO will also perform.

A variety of works from the 16th century to the present will be presented. The works include music by 16th-century composers Peter Philips and Michael Praetorius, 19th-century composer Mendelssohn, 20th-century composers Pavel Chesnakov, Randall Thompson, and Vaclav Nelhybel, and 21st-century composers Steven Stametz and Stephen Hatfield.

Once again, PolyPhonics will be present a world premiere by Cal Poly composer Meredith Brammeier, titled “A Christmas Lullaby.” This marks the seventh consecutive year that Brammeier has written a work for the Cal Poly Choirs’ “A Christmas Celebration.”

The audience will have an opportunity to join in the holiday tradition of caroling.

Tickets are $10 students, $16 and $19 seniors, $17 and $20 general and are on sale at the Performing Arts Ticket Office from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. To order by phone, call SLO-ARTS (756-2787). Patrons who buy season tickets to four Music Department events through the Performing Arts Ticket office will receive a 10 percent discount; a 15 percent discount is given to those who buy tickets to five or more events.

The holiday concert is sponsored by Cal Poly’s Music Department, College of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities program. For more information, call the Music Department at 756-2406.

Flyer for the University Jazz Bands' Fall Jazz Concert. Long horizontal photo of members University Jazz Band One.

News Release for the concert:

Jazz Up the Season With Cal Poly's Annual Fall Jazz Concert Dec. 5

SAN LUIS OBISPO – A young, fresh approach to one of America's great art forms – jazz – will be presented by the Cal Poly jazz ensembles at 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, in the Spanos Theatre at Cal Poly.

The ensembles, two big bands and a combo, will show how jazz is being reinvigorated by the next generation, according to Paul Rinzler, director of jazz studies.

Cal Poly student-musicians will perform a jazz arrangement of Van Morrison's "Moondance," a big band funk piece titled "Kickin' and Screamin'," as well as additional contemporary and traditional jazz standards, including Duke Ellington's "Don't Get Around Much Anymore."

Tickets for the concert are $10 for the public, $8 for senior citizens and Jazz Federation members, and $6 for students. They are on sale at the Performing Arts Ticket Office from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays. To order by phone, call SLO-ARTS (756-2787).

Patrons who buy season tickets to four Music Department events through the Performing Arts Ticket office will receive a 10 percent discount; a 15 percent discount is given to those who buy tickets to five or more events.

The concert is sponsored by Cal Poly's Music Department, College of Liberal Arts and Instructionally Related Activities program. For more information, call the Music Department at 756-2406.

Concert flyer for "Great Poets in Song: 1900 and Beyond"

Jacalyn Kreitzer, mezzo-soprano (pictured) Susan Azaret Davies, piano

Featuring Nancy Nagano, cello and Adrienne Stallings, mezzo-soprano

Works of Frances Poulenc, Charles Loeffler, Kurt Weill, Jake Heggie, Franz Lehar and Leonard Bernstein, with texts by Bertolt Brecht, Paul Verlaine, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Emily Dickinson, and Guillaume Apollinaire.

Premiere of “Utterances,” a piece composed by Music Department graduate Alex Kato-Willis.

September 27, 2008 Saturday at 8 p.m. Spanos Theatre, Cal Poly

Tickets: $6 students/seniors, $10 gen Performing Arts Ticket Office: 756-2787

Sponsored by the Cal Poly Music Dept. & College of Liberal Arts. To benefit the vocal scholarship fund.

Flyer for the Cal Poly Choirs Debut Concert: "American Idols"

Photo of Cal Poly a cappella ensemble Take It SLO. Photos of represented composers: Randall Thompson, Stephen Foster, and Aaron Copland, and author Edgar Allan Poe

October 25, 2008

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- The Cal Poly Choirs will perform their annual Debut Concert at 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25, in Harman Hall in the Performing Arts Center's Cohan Center on campus.

Titled “American Idols,” the program will feature music by such outstanding American composers as William Billings, Aaron Copland, Randall Thompson and Charles Ives. Selections from America’s folk song, Southern harmony, and African American spiritual traditions will also be featured, as well as the words of famous poets such as Edgar Allan Poe.

The evening will conclude with the combined choirs performing “America the Beautiful” with Paul Woodring accompanying on the Forbes Pipe Organ.

Cal Poly Music Professor Thomas Davies will conduct the 47-member PolyPhonics and the 75-members of The University Singers. Pianists Susan Azaret Davies and Paul Woodring will accompany the choirs.

In addition, the Cal Poly Early Music Ensemble and the a capella ensemble Take It SLO will perform.