Department of Music

As we near the end of the semester, many evening concerts feature a variety of instrumental studios here at Austin Peay. Concerts over the last couple of weeks have included mixed brass ensembles, trumpet ensemble, horn choir, flute choir, clarinet choir, and double reed ensemble. Upcoming concerts will feature string ensembles, guitar ensemble, and jazz combo.

The concert last Tuesday marked the inaugural performance of the APSU Double Reed Ensemble, which I direct. It was a lot of fun to prepare for our concert and to perform for such a receptive audience. Our program included a variety of Renaissance pieces as well as an arrangement of a ragtime piece by Scott Joplin. Pictured below are the members of the first ever APSU Bassoon Quartet (from left to right: myself (Dr. Nora Lewis, director) Jessica Alter, Kedric Hill, and A.J. Burger.

Congratulations to the Governors Own Marching Band on an outstanding season! Yesterday marked the last home football game of the season, and the GOMB gave an exciting performance. I took this picture from the fifty-yard line during halftime, and Mario Kee is the soloist in the foreground. Throughout this season, the GOMB performed for a wonderful crowd, enthusiastic about Austin Peay’s return to the Ohio Valley Conference.

In addition to performing at all of the home games and traveling to Samson for an away game, GOMB hosted the annual Mid South Marching Invitational at Austin Peay on October 27. Thirty high school bands participated, and it was a great opportunity for Austin Peay faculty members to visit with Austin Peay alumni who are now band directors and who brought their own bands to compete. Austin Peay was also one of the locations for the Bands of America Regional Championships on October 6. GOMB volunteers helped to keep the event running smoothly and performed twice, in exhibition performances.

Undergraduate students of all majors are selected by audition to participate in GOMB. Every member receives some tuition assistance for participation. The GOMB is directed by Andrea E. Brown, and Andrew Gaskill, Chris Gee, and Sarah Turner were the drum majors for the 2007-2008 season.

Following the Dimensions concert last night, art song composer Lori Laitman gave a master class for APSU voice students this morning. Sopranos Lindsey Claytor, Amanda Lowery, Rachel McNamara, and Jordan Stewart and tenor Christopher Bailey each performed a different song by Laitman. Anne Glass, Dr. Mabry, and Laitman were pianists for the class. After each performance, Laitman offered interpretive insight into performance of her songs, and several themes emerged.

Laitman emphasized the inherent flexibility of each song, and she showed how her music has enormous capacity for expressive freedom, particularly at the ends of phrases. She showed how the performer can become the speaker of the poem to capture the sweeping musical gestures and nuance that can’t be included in the score. The audience also learned how Laitman uses a confluence of sounds in her settings. She is concerned both with the meaning of the text as well as the sounds and colors of the actual words.

To end the class, Laitman shared a preview of a work in progress.

The first concert of the Dimensions New Music Series took place in the Music/Mass Communications Concert Hall last night. Framed around music inspired by poetry, the concert included two premieres and featured three works by guest artist Lori Laitman, a leading composer of American art song. In addition to the compositions by Laitman, the program included a premiere for solo horn by Elizabeth Vercoe, commissioned and performed by Francis Massinon, and a work for oboe and double bass by Andrea Clearfield.

The program opened with Dr. Sharon Mabry, mezzo-soprano, and pianist Patsy Wade who performed Laitman’s song cycle Mystery (1998), that sets poems by American poet Sara Teasdale (1884-1933).

Andrea Clearfield’s Three Songs for Oboe and Double Bass (After Poems by Pablo Neruda) (1997) was performed by my husband, Gordon Lewis, and me. It was a lot of fun to revisit and perform this piece again. We first performed this piece in 1998, shortly after we met, and it was the first piece we ever performed together.

Mezzo-soprano Lisa Conklin-Bishop, pianist Dr. Jeffrey Wood, and cellist Keith Nicholas then performed Laitman’s song cycle, The Seed of Dream (2004). This song cycle sets poems by Holocaust survivor Abraham Sutzkever, which were taken from his personal writings from 1941 to 1944.

Elizabeth Vercoe’s Corollaries for Solo Horn was premiered by Francis Massinon. This work begins with a one-minute theme that is followed by four variations, which the composer calls corollaries, because each corollary is a natural consequence to the theme. In 2003, Vercoe held the Acuff Chair of Excellence at Austin Peay State University, and she now teaches at Regis College.

The concert ended with tenor Dr. Thomas King and pianist Dr. Vicki King performing four songs by Laitman. Two of these songs, “Full Moon” (rev. 2006) and Light Hearted William (rev. 2006), both with text by William Carlos Williams, were premieres.

Since 1980 more than forty composers have come to our campus for premieres of their works and to speak to students about their work. I’m looking forward to Laitman’s master class later this morning, where she will coach APSU music students on several of her songs.