News From the Hartt Dean's Office
January 30, 2008

Charter Oak Cultural Center Presents Full Force Dance Theater in “Window to the World”, Feb. 1-2

Charter Oak Cultural Center presents Full Force Dance Theatre in “Window to the World”, a contemporary dance concert with international themes and world music by Zap Mama, Sheila Chandra, Nawang Khechog, Michio Mamiya and more.  Also featured will be Katie Stevinson-Nollet's recent hit When the Fat Lady Sings, a suite of quirky, yet endearing dances, performed to classic Opera favorites.  Lorelei Li Chang, a five year veteran with FFDT, sets her newest work Sacred Garden on the company.  Performances are February 1 and 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Charter Oak Cultural Center, 21 Charter Oak Ave., Hartford.  Tickets are $20, $10 seniors, and $5 students.  For more information call 860-249-1207 or visit the Full Force Dance Theatre web site.

Orpheus in the Underworld, Feb. 7-10

The Hartt School presents Jacques Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld in a full mainstage opera production with orchestra from February 7 through 10 featuring Hartt’s Vocal Division undergraduate opera program.  Performances are Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. in Millard Auditorium on the University of Hartford campus.  Admission to Orpheus in the Underworld is $20 for the general public, with discounts for senior citizens, students and groups. 

When Offenbach rewrote the tragic Greek love story of Orpheus and Eurydice, he transformed it into a comedy of mythological proportions.  In Offenbach's version, Orpheus is no longer trying to save his beloved wife, but is almost as eager to get rid of her as she is to run off with a new lover.  The gods Pluto and Jupiter are happy to assist in the breakup, as both are busy scheming for Eurydice's affections.  Along the way, all the gods and a few mortals join Pluto in the underworld as he throws a party for the ages.  The composer, Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), was a French composer and cellist, and one of the originators of the operetta form. Offenbach's numerous operettas, such as Orpheus in the Underworld and La belle Helene , were extremely popular in both France and the English-speaking world in the 1850s and 1860s. They combined political and cultural satire with witty grand opera parodies. His popularity in France waned in the 1870s after the fall of the Second Empire, and he fled France, but during the last years of his life, his popularity rebounded, and several of his operettas are still performed.

Purchase tickets online

FOR YOUR INFORMATION

University Regent Susan McCray has produced a new CD, titled Warm Heart ... Cool Hands, celebrating the music of her late father, Oscar-winning composer Harry Sukman.
(UNotes Daily, Dec. 21)

Masterclasses with Ray Still, Oboe, Feb. 4

The Hartt School presents two masterclasses with Ray Still, former principal oboe with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, on Monday, February 4 at 2:30 p.m. in the Fuller Music Center, Room 201 and 6 p.m. in Berkman Auditorium.  Admission is free.

Ray Still is acknowledged to be one of the greatest living performers on his instrument. His teachers were Philip Melomi, Fernand Gillet, Bruno Labate and Robert Bloom. The great Henri de Busser was a profound influence.  He was principal oboe with the Buffalo Philharmonic and the Baltimore Symphony. He was principal and soloist with the Chicago Symphony under Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti, and Carlo-Maria Giulini. He has played with the Juilliard, Vermeer, Lennox and Fine Arts Quartets. Mr. Still has given performances of the Strauss Concerto, Bach Double Concerto and Mozart Concerto with the Chicago Symphony. His many recordings include Quartets for Oboe and Strings with fellow artists Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zuckerman and Lynn Harrell, Schumann Romances for oboe and piano with John Perry, and the Bach Wedding Cantata with Kathleen Battle, James Levine and the CSO strings.
 
Hartford Saxophone Quartet Advances to Finals of National Music Competition

The Preludio Saxophone Quartet will travel to Denver, CO in March to compete as National Finalists in the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) Young Artist Chamber Music Competition.

Nick Statzer, Scott Edwards, Steve FitzGerald, and Daniel Luongo, all students at The Hartt School, earned this opportunity after winning the Eastern Division of the Chamber Music Competition. The ensemble is under the guidance of coach Carrie Koffman, saxophone professor at The Hartt School.

Since its formation in 2006, the quartet has been awarded the Best in Chamber Music Award each semester for Hartt’s Chamber Music Program. Other accolades include being featured at the 31st International Saxophone Symposium at George Mason University. The quartet is committed to interpreting both standard repertoire and new contemporary works for saxophone quartet.

The National Chamber Music Competition will take place on Saturday, March 29 during the MTNA National Conference. The national winner of this competition receives a cash prize and will perform in a winner’s concert during the conference.

The three-tiered MTNA competitions begin at the state level. Winners of each State Competition advance to the division competition. Division winners then proceed to the National Competition Finals.

To receive more information about the MTNA National Competitions, including competition rules and applications please contact MTNA national headquarters at (888) 512-5278, mtnanet@mtna.org or visit the website www.mtna.org.

Music Teachers National Association is a nonprofit organization comprised of 24,000 independent and collegiate music teachers committed to advancing the value of music study and music making to society and to supporting the professionalism of music teachers. Founded in 1876, Music Teachers National Association is the oldest professional music association in the
United States.

ACADEMIC ACCOLADES

Steve Larson, chair of chamber music at The Hartt School, is a viola performer with the Avery Ensemble's String Trio, which was scheduled to open the Classical Concert Series for 2008 at Pomperaug Woods.

STUDENT & ALUMNI NEWS

Robert W. Blake, Jr. (BM, 1998) of Milford, MA was awarded the 2007 Manchester Music Festival’s Second Regional Composition Competition (Manchester, VT) for his work Verklaertes Leben (Transfigured Life) for string orchestra.  Blake works as a freelance composer and is organist and music director at Saint Mary of the Assumption Church in Milford.

Jazz saxophonist Houston Person gave a concert at Trinity-on-Main in New Britain to a near capacity crowd. In a review of the show by the Hartford Courant, Person, who studied at The Hartt School, recalled his early days of performing to a small crowd in the same town, and said it feels like a homecoming whenever he performs in central Connecticut.
(Hartford Courant, Jan. 14)

Alumnus Andrew Glackin died on Jan. 5 from heart damage caused by an undiagnosed thyroid condition.  Glackin, a bassist who lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., played with the Silos, Graham Parker, Susan Tedeschi, the Feathermerchants, and others.
(Hartford Courant, Jan. 10)

Dr. Alexandra Zacharella (BM, 1999) will join the faculty for Kinderkids Theatre Time, a theatre introduction program for kindergarten through second grade children, beginning in February at the University of Arkansas - Fort Smith.
(UA Fort Smith News, Jan. 8)

Student Christopher Taborsky is having a research paper published in Update: Applications of Research in Music Education.  The article, “Musical Performance Anxiety: A Review of Literature” appears in the Fall/Winter 2007 issue of Update.  Update’s focus is to bring current research to both scholars and practitioners in music education; the journal is published by MENC: The National Association for Music Education.  MENC members may access the journal on line here.

Steven Schoenberg (BM, 1975) gave a piano recital at Smith College in Northampton, MA supporting The Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust, named after a mountain in Warwick, which devotes itself to protecting a rural chunk of land that stretches across 23 Massachusetts towns.
(The Republican, Jan. 17)

Read the Community Division's Newsletter

Community Division Student Performs in Holiday Musical
Ten-year-old Hartt Community Division student Meg Guzulescu performed in the holiday musical, Irving Berlin's White Christmas, in December at the Wang Center in Boston.
(Unotes Daily, Dec. 19)