Preparing for Pippin . . .

Pippin opens in two days and, until the moment the curtain parts, the preparatory work proceeds apace.  Technical advisor Troy Snyder and set designer Sean Marko work on the backdrop banners.  Sean (who has also acted and directed), designed and painted the banners, based on the Bayeux Tapestry.

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Somewhat later, the banners lie drying in the empty theatre, caressed, as it were, by 8th-century breezes (courtesy of a large  industrial fan).

Pippin

Pippin, a musical based (somewhat loosely) on the life of the 8th-century son of Charlemagne, “Pippin the Hunchback”, will be presented by the FSU School of Fine Arts and the Masquers in six evening performances (7:30 p.m.) on November 19th, 20th & 21st, and December 3rd, 4th & 5th and one matinee performance (2 p.m.) on December 6th, in the Wallman Hall Theatre.  Tickets are $12 for the general public, $10 for seniors, and $8 for students.  (Theme not suitable for children).

From the book by Roger O. Hirson, with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, Pippin was originally produced on the Broadway stage by Stuart Ostrow and directed by Bob Fosse.   The current production is directed by Jeffrey Ingman, with choreography by Liz Rossi and musical direction by Jimmy Clegg. 

The leading roles are as follows –  Pippin:  Daniel Crowley;   Charles:  Marc Cornes;   Lewis:  Jonathan Shay;   Fastrada:  Dani DaVito;   Bertha:  Lynette Six;   Catherine:  Loralee Simpson;   Theo:  Drake Bolle;   Leading Player:  Reggie Jose;  Young Man:  Daniel Crowley.   (A full cast list will be included in the program).

When asked how he would characterize this production of Pippin, which has been usually staged as a romantic musical comedy or Bob Fosse vehicle, director Jeffrey Ingman described it as “a black comedy, very dark and gritty, with the high notes skimmed off…” 

The setting is in the present, but the present of circa 780 A.D.   A wandering lad, the proverbial “lost boy”, stumbles by chance into a troupe of players who are looking for the perfect candidate to play “Pippin”, disaffected son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.   They seize upon the “lost boy” who, to their minds, fits the bill perfectly, and so it is that the unsuspecting wanderer is thrust into the performance of a lifetime.

If you are hoping for a familiar, comfortable rendering of an old favorite, this may not be the production for you.  If, on the other hand, you are in the mood for an edgy stroll down a darkened street, with something ominous at the end, this may be just the ticket.  In any case, the Jeffrey Ingman production of Pippen promises to be one of the more compelling offerings of the FSU theatre season.

Guitar concert, Tuesday, November 17, 8 p.m., 229 Wallman Hall

The Fairmont State Guitar Department, under the direction of Dr. Patrick Joyce, will perform a concert of ensemble and solo guitar music, Tuesday, November 17 at 8:00 pm in room 229 of Wallman Hall. Christopher Dickey, Gregory Hayhurst, Joshua Lucas and Tristram Salisbury will play music ranging from the Renaissance period to the 20th century. They will assemble as a quartet and in duet form as well as play solo guitar pieces. The concert is free, no ticket required.

New Fine Arts Faculty Member: Dr. Samuel B. Spears

The Music Department’s newest member, Sam Spears, hails originally from Dacula, Georgia, a small town northeast of Atlanta. In recent years it has been swallowed by suburban sprawl, but when Sam lived there as a boy it was still largely rural. He and his wife Keri have just celebrated their second anniversary.  They met in Miami, FL, while Sam was working towards his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting at the University of Miami.

At Fairmont State, Sam serves as Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities. He comes with wide experience as a performer, conductor and scholar. Previously he taught voice and music and directed choirs at Miami Dade College, Florida International University, Emmanuel College, and Salem Academy. He has also served as musical director for several churches and civic choirs.

Sam’s professional choral singing experience is considerable. He is a founding member of Miami’s renowned and much-recorded chamber choir, Seraphic Fire. Additionally, he has sung with a wide range of other choirs, including the Vocal Arts Ensemble of Cincinnati, Bel Canto Company, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus and Chamber Chorus.

Sam has sung major works with such conductors as Robert Shaw, Michael Tilson Thomas, Sir David Willcocks, James Conlon, Robert Spano, Yoel Levi, Ann Howard Jones, Robert King, and Stephen Darlington. He participated in the world premieres of the acoustic version of Hymnodic Delays by Ingram Marshall, Four Reveries by William Hawley, and The Road from Hiroshima: A Requiem, by Shawn Crouch (nominated for the Pulitzer Prize).

Sam’s recordings include Stabat Mater by Antonin Dvorak, conducted by Robert Shaw (1999), and three recordings by Seraphic Fire (2005, 2006 & 2007), on one of which he was featured as a soloist.

Sam Spears is also at home with a baton in his hand, having conducted some thirty orchestral, ensemble and choral performances over the past twelve years, of pieces by such diverse composers as Praetorius, Purcell, Bach, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Vaughn Williams and Bernstein.

Sam has also given a number of solo performances, including, among others, Bach’s St. John Passion with the Miami Bach Society, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the Piedmont College Orchestra and Chorus, the world premier of Hale’s An American Requiem, the world premier of Gelineau’s La Cantique des Cantiques, Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and Mendelssohn’s Elijah.

As well as a conductor, performer and teacher, Sam Spears is also a scholar of music history. The title of his doctoral essay was “A Study of Michael Praetorius’ Megalynodia Sionia: An Historical and Stylistic Analysis and Selective Modern Performing Edition.” He has been awarded a number of fellowships and scholarships from three universities, was a Magna cum Laude graduate of Furman University, and a National Merit Scholar.

Hillary Barlow Senior Recital Saturday, November 21, 3 p.m., in 229 Wallman Hall

Hillary Barlow, mezzo-soprano, will present her Senior Recital on Saturday, November 21 at 3:00 pm in 229 Wallman Hall.  She will be performing a variety of songs from composers such as Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Debussy and Handel.  Hillary will also be singing the famous aria “Una voce poco fa” from Rossini’s opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia (The Barber of Seville).

West Virginia Piano Quartet to perform in St Peter the Fisherman Church, Sunday, November 15

The third concert presented by the Fairmont Chamber Music Society in its twenty-eighth season will feature the West Virgnia Piano Quartet in beautiful St. Peter the Fisherman Church, downtown Fairmont on Sunday November 15 at 3:00.

The quartet is one of the premier faculty performing groups at WVU and includes Mikylah Myers McTeer, violin, Maggie Snyder, viola, William Skidmore, cello and James Miltenberger, piano. Members of the WVU piano Quartet have all performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe as soloists and as members of chamber ensembles and symphony orchestras The quartet will present a program which includes a recent work (1988) by Stephen Hartke and the magnificent Quartet in A Major, Op. 26 by Johannes Brahms.

As usual the concert will be followed by a reception to allow the audience to meet the artists, and tickets for the program will be available at the door. Free tickets are available to students in Room 304, Wallman Hall.

Sunday’s program is presented with financial assistance from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History, and the National Endowment for the Arts, with approval from the West Virginia Commission on the Arts.

Performer biographies

Professor James Miltenberger (piano) serves as Instructor of Piano, Piano Repertoire, and Jazz Piano at West Virginia University. He received his DMA and Master’s degree from the Eastman School of Music and his Bachelor’s degree from Miami University of Ohio. He has performed extensively as a soloist throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan. His solo appearances with various orchestras include performances at Carnegie Hall and with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. He is the founder and pianist of the Miltenberger Jazz Quartet and was soloist with Percussion ‘80 of West Virginia University. Professor Miltenberger has been active as a composer and arranger for various West Virginia University ensembles, including Percussion ‘80, the Marching Band, and the Jazz Ensembles. He is an MTNA adjudicator at the state, regional, and national levels and a recipient of the Outstanding Teacher Award at West Virginia University.

As Professor of Cello, coach of the resident graduate string quartet and other chamber groups, and Coordinator of Strings, William Skidmore (cello) offers our students insight that is founded upon significant professional experience. He has presented numerous recitals throughout the Eastern United States including performances at the National Gallery of Art,the Phillips Collection, and The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Mr. Skidmore taught previously at University of Maryland, he was a member of the Baltimore Symphony for four seasons and he has taught cello and chamber music at the Interlochen Arts Camp. As a chamber musician, he has been a member of the Maryland Trio, the Baltimore Symphony String Quartet, and the American Arts Trio. In addition to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, he was principal cellist with the West Virginia Symphonette and the Ohio Valley Symphony. He holds degrees from the University of Illinois , and his principal teachers were Peter Farrell, Louis Potter, Leonard Rose, and Joseph Gingold.

For biographical information on Maggie Snyder (viola), see earlier story
“Maggie Snyder to perform . . .

Dr. Mikylah Myers McTeer (violin) is assistant professor of violin at West Virginia University. She maintains an active chamber music and solo performance schedule, which this year includes world premier performances at the College Music Society’s national conference in Atlanta, solo appearances with Pennsylvania’s River City Brass Band, and a performance of Kurt Weill’s Violin Concerto with the WVU Chamber Winds. Dr. McTeer received her doctoral and master’s degrees from the University of Houston’s Moores School of Music, where she studied with renowned violinist Fredell Lack. During her time in Houston, Dr. McTeer regularly performed with the Houston Symphony and the Houston Grand Opera. She was also a violinist with the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, Florida. Dr. McTeer was previously concertmaster of the San Juan Symphony and assistant professor of violin and viola at Fort Lewis College. She was also the founder, artistic director, and conductor of the Durango Youth Symphony. An award-winning chamber musician, Dr. McTeer performs with WVU’s faculty piano quartet. She was formerly the violinist of the Red Shoe Piano Trio at Fort Lewis College and the violinist of the Moores Piano Trio in Houston, Texas, which was the silver prize winner at the 2000 Carmel Chamber Music Competition. Dr. McTeer has performed internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral player in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Italy, Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary. Dr. McTeer spends her summers performing at music festivals throughout the United States and Europe, which have included the Spoleto Italy Festival, the AIMS in Graz, Austria Festival, the Oregon Coast Festival, and the Ernest Bloch Festival in Newport, Oregon. She is currently a member of the Colorado Music Festival Orchestra and is a thirteen-year member of the Britt Festival Orchestra in Jacksonville, Oregon. Dr. McTeer received her bachelor’s degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, where she studied violin with Roland and Almita Vamos. She was also a four-year-member and co-captain of the Oberlin College varsity women’s soccer team.

Amy Prenatt Senior Recital this Friday, November 13, 7 p.m., in 229 Wallman Hall

Amy Prenatt will present her Senior Recital on Friday, November 13 at 7:00 pm in 229 Wallman Hall. She will be performing works by Alexander Goedicke, Georg Frideric Handel, and Leroy Anderson, as well as the Haydn Concerto on E-flat trumpet and Sonata in D Major by Purcell on piccolo trumpet in A. There will be a reception in the Tower room immediately following the recital.

The sublimity of industrial destruction: Fine Arts Film Society presents “Manufactured Landscapes” tomorrow, Tuesday, Nov 10 in 411 Wallman Hall

Tomorrow, Tuesday, November 10, at 12:30 in 411 Wallman Hall, the Fine Arts Film Society will be showing Manufactured Landscapes, a striking documentary on the world and work of renowned artist Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of “manufactured landscapes”—quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams—Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris.

The film follows him through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. With breathtaking sequences, such as the opening tracking shot through an almost endless factory, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste.

In the spirit of such environmentally enlightening hits as An Inconvenient Truth and Rivers and Tides, Manufactured Landscapes powerfully shifts our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it, without simplistic judgments or reductive resolutions.

Sigma Alpha Iota Musicale Recital this Thursday, November 12 in Wallman Hall at 3 p.m.

The Epsilen Psi chapter of the Sigma Alpha Iota Women’s Music Honorary Fraternity will present a Musicale Recital
at 3:00 p.m. in 229 Wallman Hall on Thursday, November 12.

In addition to members of Sigma Alpha Iota Music Honorary, seven FSU faculty members — Mary Lynne Bennett, John Morrison, Dorothy Skidmore, John Schooley, Constance Edwards and Patrick Joyce — will be performing as well.

On the program are works by composers Astor Piazzolla, John Schooley, Karl Andreas Goepfert, Gordon Jacob and Kenneth Frazelle, among others.

Admission is free. This is the 19th consecutive year for the recital sponsored by Sigma Alpha Iota International Honorary Music Fraternity.

Spilled color

From the Wallman Hall stairwell, artists can look across the campus to a kindred spirit in the form of a great old ginko, spilling color on the ground with all the reckless bravura of a Jackson Pollock, though the yellow may put one more in mind of that mad visionary Van Gogh, flailing his canvas amid acres & acres of nodding sunflowers . . .