October 2023 College News

Megan Magill , Zachary Nelson , Katelyn Segarra , Evelyn Toscano , Brissa Trondle , Gentry Wessman , Cora Winstead , and Caleb Wood . This opportunity allows our talented voice students to showcase their skills and receive valuable feedback from a panel of distinguished judges, competing against singers from across the Southwestern United States. Winners will also have the chance to represent Texas State at the national level competition in summer 2024. ALUMNI ACCOLADES Crystal Alexander-Duckett performs with and arranges for the Austin Saxophone Ensemble, a group founded in 2013 that consists of professional musicians in the greater Austin area as performers, band directors, teachers, and composers. Alexander-Duckett described the ensemble sound as “orchestral, experimental, lush, violent, delicate, expansive, precise, aggressive, sensitive, and everything in between. Our ears and hearts are open to all great music—whether it is the timeless classical warhorses of Vivaldi and Tchaikovsky or inventive and thrilling music written by some of Austin’s greatest living composers.” Tiana Moritz was recently selected Principal Violist of the Central Texas Philharmonic, a professional orchestra based in Georgetown, through a rigorous blind audition process. In summer 2023, Moritz attended the Brevard Music Center in North Carolina where she studied with leading viola pedagogue Juliet White-Smith. She is currently preparing applications and auditions for graduate viola performance programs in the United States and in Germany through the US Department of State Fulbright Program. [5] Nick Tozzo , a professional Salsa percussionist with the Superfonicos and Kiko Villamizar , shared his experiences as a performing and teaching musician for the Latin Music Seminar on September 15. Afterwards, he visited the Salsa del Rio rehearsal and coached the rhythm section. [6] Tiana Moritz was selected to be Prinicpal Violist for the Central Texas Philharmonic Nick Tozzo shared his experiences at the Latin Music Seminar 14 | October 2023 | College News 5 6 Martin Kesuma performed at the Vancouver International Piano Competition 4 While completing his doctoral dissertation, Jordan Stern , a senior lecturer in the School of Music, noted a particular gap in the music performance course offerings at most universities. Stern observed that “music schools have traditionally taught classical music, and have recently embraced jazz, Latin and popular music styles, but have mostly excluded country- western music.” In the Fall of 2022, Stern put up flyers around campus seeking student musicians who were interested in playing Country-Western music. Stern initially hoped to get together enough musicians to form a band, but was happily surprised when he had enough interested students to form three full bands, which he eventually coalesced into two performing units. These students became an organization known as Bobcat Country , which was founded with a three-part mission: to preserve and perpetuate traditional country western music, to provide entertainment for the Texas State campus and surrounding communities, and to prepare students to become gigging country-western musicians. In the first year of its existence, Bobcat Country performed on campus several times, and played a show at Mercer Dancehall in Driftwood. Currently, there are 18 members of Bobcat Country, representing 10 different academic majors on campus. Stern plans on helping the group to grow, and intends on recruiting young country-western performers around Texas to come to Texas State to be a part of Bobcat Country. “For years, country western musicians have been excluded from music performance opportunities on the university level. I want for country musicians to be able to develop their art and craft here at Texas State for years to come.” # BOBCAT COUNTRY This is Hank Williams the IV. He was the guest artist at the Donor Appreciation Event College of Fine Arts and Communication | 15