|
February 2008
|
The spring tour of The Concordia College Band will begin Feb. 9 at the Dassel-Cokato (Minn.) Performing Arts Center. The band will tour Minnesota and Wisconsin cities before performing at the Minnesota Music Educators Association convention in Minneapolis.
The tour features a student soloist, Karin Newstrom '08, French horn; and one faculty member, Dr. Nathaniel Dickey, trombone.
Newstrom, a senior from St. Cloud, Minn., who is majoring in music performance and psychology, will perform the lead on Richard Strauss' "Concerto No. 1," a piece that enjoys widespread popularity for solo horn.
Dickey will take the lead on "Downtown Diversions," a swift and light-footed composition by Adam Gorb that is a serenade with jazz and Latin influences.
Other concert favorites to be performed include Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee," and Peter Lutkin's soulful "The Lord Bless You and Keep You," which is a unique blending of wind band and voices.
The band will also perform "Pride of the West," written by Herman Monson, a music professor at Concordia from 1923 to 1937 who was an early conductor of The Concordia Choir. Monson also wrote the music for the college's song, "Hymn to Concordia."
The tour schedule:
Saturday, Feb. 9, 7:30 p.m., joint concert with the Dassel-Cokato (Minn.) High School Symphonic Band,
Dassel-Cokato Performing Arts Center.
Sunday, Feb. 10, 7 p.m., joint concert with the Black River Falls (Wis.) High School Concert Band,
Lunda Community Theater,
Black River Falls Middle School.
Monday, Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m., Margaret Williams Theater, Madison (Wis.) East High School
Tuesday, Feb. 12, 7 p.m., joint concert with the Edgewood (Wis.) High School Concert and Symphonic Bands,
Edgewood High School Krantz Center, Madison, Wis.
Wednesday, Feb. 13, 7:30 p.m., joint concert with The Minnesota Symphonic Winds,
Ted Mann Concert Hall,
University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Thursday, Feb. 14, 7 p.m., joint concert with the River Falls High School Wind Symphony,
River Falls High School Auditorium, River Falls, Wis.
Friday, Feb. 15,
7:30 p.m., Minnesota Music Educators Association Convention,
Minneapolis Convention Center Ballroom, Minneapolis. This is a joint concert with the Concordia College Chapel Choir.
Sunday, Feb. 17,
4 p.m.,
Home Concert, Memorial Auditorium,
Concordia College.
Arizona Events Set for February
Arizona Cobbers are invited to two winter events sure to lead to great conversations and a fun time.
Dinner and Music Performance
Sunday, Feb. 24
Arizona Golf Resort and Conference Center in Mesa
5 p.m. reception, 5:30 p.m. dinner
Music will be provided by Concordia music faculty Dr. Holly Wrensch, Mezzo-Soprano, and Dr. Sarah Kahl, Piano. Tickets are $28 per person. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Linda Soderberg at 218.299.3454.
Arizona Golf Scramble
Monday, Feb. 25
Arrowhead Country Club in Glendale
11 a.m. brunch, 12:30 p.m. tee time
Tickets are $80 per person and include brunch, 18 holes of golf, a cart, other fees, prizes and a 5:30 p.m. buffet dinner. Non-golfer brunch tickets are $15 per person. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact Vicki Juven at 218.299.4990.
Join other Concordia women for a special event this spring, featuring the founder and executive director of Camp Odayin, an inspiring summer camp for children with heart disease.
The March 15 Concordia Women Connect Brunch in Moorhead will include a brunch, opportunity to visit with other alumnae and a presentation by Sara Meslow '92, who turned her own experience with a life-threatening heart condition into a way to reach hundreds of children. The brunch will be from 10 a.m. to noon in Grant Center. Tickets are $15.
Meslow thought her heart problems were conquered in 1994, and they were for five years. But in 1999, she was diagnosed with ventricular tachycardia, a life-threatening condition associated with problems in the lower chambers. A successful surgery in 2000 implanted a defibrillator in her chest to correct her abnormal heart rhythms.
The summer following her surgery, Meslow learned of a camp in California for kids with heart disease. She jumped at the opportunity to volunteer for three summers and began dreaming of creating a similar camp in Minnesota.
Camp Odayin, named for the Ojibway word for heart, opened the summer of 2002 near Brainerd, Minn. Campers and their parents take comfort in knowing expert medical care is on site and the children can relax and have fun. They ride horses, water ski, kayak and hike.
Watch your mail for an invitation or register online soon.
Choir Tour Presents Message of Peace and Reconciliation
The program for the spring concert tour by The Concordia Choir is an innovative and groundbreaking concept for an a cappella choir utilizing the standard soprano-alto-tenor-bass structure. It is the most wide-ranging program ever envisioned by the choir's renowned composer and conductor, Dr. René Clausen.
The concerts feature a new composition by Clausen commissioned for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Forum hosted by Concordia College in Moorhead, March 7-8.
The yet-to-be-named piece establishes a theme of conflict and war that is ultimately resolved by a moving plea for peace. The choir will perform amid various wartime photographs supplemented by live and recorded instrumental music to create a vocal and visual tapestry.
Remaining sections of the program are grouped by theme.
Pieces from the Russian choral tradition include two movements from Sergei Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil and Alfred Schnittke's Choral Concerto, Movement II. German and Latin motets include composers Hugo Distler, Giovanni Gabriele, and Schutz.
The third set, titled Three Love Songs, includes This Marriage by noted young composer Eric Whitacre as well as a Clausen arrangement of What A Wonderful World made popular by Nat King Cole.
The concert ends with a variety of hymns and spirituals as well as the audience favorite Little Potato as often heard on the Minnesota Public Radio network of stations.
See the tour schedule for dates and ticket information.
Cobber Band Concert Honors Minnesota Composers
Cobber Band Director Dr. Nathaniel Dickey didn't have to look far in search of selections for this year's Composers Concert. He found them right here in Minnesota.
This year marks the fifth annual Composers Concert, which will take place on Thursday, Feb. 19, at 7:30 p.m., in the Orchestra Rehearsal Hall of Hvidsten. The program returns to the theme of the first concert in 2004: Minnesota Composers. This year's performance takes on a new twist, featuring not only composers from Minnesota, but Concordia student compositions and arrangements as well.
"I had had the idea for a composers concert for a long time," says Dickey, who collaborated in the production of a similar program during his previous position as assistant director of bands at Harvard University. "Once we got the series going at Concordia, and after I had been here a while, I started seeing the potential in our students on campus."
Dickey's call for student submissions last spring received an impressive response. The concert features five student compositions: "A History" by Jeffrey Marquardt '11, "The Plague" by Emily Matter '11 and "Could My Tears For Ever Flow" by Nathan Hance '10, and a pair of existing works arranged by student conductors Daniel Leeman ‘09 and Christine Tudehope ‘08.
For many students, this concert is the first opportunity to present their work to the public. Music education major Leeman is one of those lucky students who will get to conduct a piece he arranged. Leeman says it is exciting and to premiere his arrangement of "Crown Him With Many Crowns" by George Elvey.
"‘Crown Him With Many Crowns' is a hymn that speaks to me in my personal faith," he says. "The challenge is to maintain the importance of the text even though it's played by a wind band."
In addition to granting students the hands-on opportunity to present original works, the concert puts Concordia students side-by-side with local talent.
"We have a lot of rich heritage music right here," says Leeman. "The goal of the concert is to expose the Concordia community and the Cobber Band to powerful music that's also local."
The program showcases some of that local flair with published works by professional composers Judith Lang Zaimont and Frank Bencriscutto and the regional premiere of "Tirana" by Carol Barnett, which Concordia co-commissioned in 2006. Dickey and the Cobber Band are currently rehearsing the works and are excited to present the "homegrown" concert to the public this month.
"Quilters" Theatre Production Returns
Twenty years ago, Concordia Theatre put on the legendary folk musical "Quilters" and this month marks the return of the production to the Frances Frazier Comstock Theatre, with Helen Cermak directing as she did at its premiere.
"The celebration of pioneer women in ‘Quilters' is an empowering opportunity," says Cermak. "That was true 20 years ago when I first directed it, and still is in 2008 with our current acting company."
Cermak remains in touch with members of the original cast and many of them plan on attending the February production. "Enacting the lives of real people and mingling of past and present performers is proving to be a unique experience," Cermak says.
"Quilters" centers around the character Sarah Bonham and her daughters as they crossed and settled in the Great Plains. In this celebration of hardships, various memories and stories are passed down to the next generations through quilting. Each family experience is shown through a different quilt block.
Both the plot and set for "Quilters" is unique. Unlike a more traditional linear plotline, the plot is circular and is a collection of different people's experiences. And instead of writing a show around a set, Barbara Damashek and Molly Newman wrote "Quilters" so the set would shift to fit the story or stories being told. The stage is a blank canvas waiting to be filled with colorful and intricate stories. The simpler set, which includes actual quilt blocks, is key to the nonlinear plotline.
This massive story with a minimal set is a family-friendly musical celebration of courage and spirit of this nation's pioneer women. A mother and her daughters piece together the "fabric" of their lives in a patchwork of music, dance and drama.
"Quilters" runs Feb. 14-17. Tickets are available at 218. 299.3314 or thrtix@cord.edu.
New Jersey Language Village Announced
Concordia Languages Villages will open Lago del Bosco, an Italian Language Village, near Blairstown, N.J. in July. The new Village will offer one- and two-week sessions for students ages 7 to 14. The new Village is supported by the National Italian American Foundation and is the first language village on the East Coast.
“Our Minnesota sites welcome hundreds of villagers from the East Coast every year. The addition of a site in New Jersey allows participants from the East Coast, many of whom have Italian heritage, easier access to our program,” says Patricia Thornton, director of Summer Youth Programs for Concordia Language Villages.
The first Italian Language Village opened in 2003 on Sandhill Lake near Fosston, Minn. High school credit, one and two- week sessions, adult Italian immersion weekends and a week for families are all offered through the Italian Language Village.
MMEA Performance is Feb. 15
The Concordia College Band and Chapel Choir will perform on Friday, Feb. 15 at 7:30 p.m, for the Minnesota Music Educators Association’s midwinter clinic.
The public is invited to the performance, which will take place at the Minneapolis Convention Center Ballroom. The MMEA is an organization concerned with enriching the musical experiences of students through a variety of concerts and festivities.
|
| |
|
Let
us know what you think of eNews.
eNews is a publication of Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota
Copyright © 2007 All Rights Reserved.
Concordia
College, 901 8th St S, Moorhead, MN 56562; (218) 299-4000 |
-
|