October2018CollegeNews

1 Dr. Martin McCain (bottom left) playing in the video collaboration of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” with trombonists across the globe 2 Joseph Raby (middle) at one of the three diferent music festivals he performed at this summer 3 Dean John Fleming (left) and Lisa and Jim Bob Spencer (right) with some of the music students who recieved scholarships 14 | October | College News MUSIC Music, Music Studies, Per formance, & Sound Recording Technolog y FACULTY ACCOLADES Craig Hella Johnson , grammy-winner and Texas State Artist-in-Residence, and his Austin-based choral ensemble Conspirare performed Johnson’s monumental work Considering Matthew Shepard as part of their 2018 National Tour at the National Cathedral during the service where Shepard’s ashes were interred. Tey also gave the frst Chicago-area performance of Considering Matthew Shepard , at the Ravinia Festival’s Martin Teatre. Te performance included Texas State instrumental music faculty Ames Asbell and Vanguel Tangarov . Te Chicago Tribune published an admiring review of the performance and the piece, describing it as “a stylistically free-ranging score that carried echoes of Leonard Bernstein and Samuel Barber but also old-fashioned hymnody and raw and cathartic blues. It was dispatched persuasively by choristers, who took turns playing various characters; instrumentalists who provided atmosphere and color . . .” and as an expression that “became much more than just one man’s story. In some respects, it was everyone’s story, a refection on human travails and heavenly aspirations.” Tis summer Dr. Martin McCain took part in a 28-member video collaboration of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” with several trombonists across the globe. Some of those members are Peter Moore (London Symphony), Zoltan Kiss (Mnozil Brass), Paul Pollard (Te Met) and jazz artists such as Jiggs Whigham and Marshall Gilkes, just to name a few. [1] Te video can be found here. McCain also taught and performed at summer festivals in Croatia, China, Japan and Taiwan. On September 4, McCain was an Artist-in-Residence at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. STUDENT ACCOLADES Joseph Raby performed at three diferent music festivals this summer: Rafaél Mendez Brass Institute, Mountain Light Music Festival, Masterworks Festival. [2] SCHOOL ACCOLADES Te Texas State Choirs have launched a new podcast, “Texas State Choirs Today.” Hosted by Associate Director of Choral Activities Jonathan Babcock , the podcast features interviews with guest artists and faculty. Tis season will include interviews with composers Gwyneth Walker and Jocelyn Hagen; Ralph Allwood, O.B.E. former Precentor and Director of Music at Eton College, UK; as well as faculty artists Marc Reynolds , Craig Hella Johnson and Lynn Brinckmeyer . Episodes are released the frst and ffteenth of every month. In an article on-line about Hispanic-serving institutions of higher education, NBC News cites Texas State University as an example. “Te university wrote a strategic plan in 2008 to become an HSI by 2011, which it has achieved. It now has over 14,000 Latino students, who are about 38 percent of the students enrolled. ‘We’ve done very signifcant programmatic activities. We created a climate that is welcoming for students. Our music program has salsa and mariachi that the students actually brought to us and we developed it,’ said T. Jaime Chahin, dean of Texas State University’s College of Applied Arts.” Te on-line piece also shows a video of our proud Mariachi Nueva Generación, which is directed by Professor John Lopez . BANDS CENTENNIAL MUSIC PROJECT Tree hundred and sixty-fve days go by and it is a year. Ten of those years pass and it is a decade. Ten decades pass and the overwhelming feeling of a hundred years passing by is a century flled with rich memories and evolution. Te upcoming year, 2019 – 2020, the Bobcat Bands are planning many events to celebrate the Bands’ hundredth anniversary. Te Texas State Bands Centennial Music Project is one of the projects taking part in the annual online giving campaign. Te fund drive is an opportunity to support the commission of a new composition dedicated to the elite Texas State Wind Symphony. Dr. Kevin Mooney is writing a decade-by-decade history of the music program at Texas State. While researching, Dr. Mooney has found details that contrast to the modern-day marching band of about 350 students. “Te Bobcat Band enjoys a reputation for exciting half-time performances and exhibits an impressive force on the feld. Tis is quite in contrast to its early days,” Dr. Mooney said. “Dr. Robert A. Tampke was the frst faculty director of the band, as the band was student directed prior to his arrival in 1923. He recalled in a 1978 interview that when they frst played as a college band (there were ten or twelve [students] in the band at the time), they were stopped at the gate when they arrived at the feld and asked to pay admission.” “One interesting thing that I discovered was that among the frst seventeen faculty members when the doors frst opened to students of that frst fall class in 1903 was a music teacher, Miss Mary Stuart Butler. Butler Hall here on campus was named after her. She was primarily a voice teacher, but she taught every college student, since at least one music course was required for all students.” — story by music-major Jennifer Gutierrez #DONORSPOTLIGHT Lisa and Jim Bob Spencer host an annual music scholarship fundraiser, with proceeds matched by Sharon Lockett . At a recent Somos Musicos event, Lisa and Jim Bob presented certifcates to the 20 recipients of the new Spencer, Lockett and Friends Music Scholarship. [3] College of Fine Arts and Communication | 15