Category: Hugh Hodgson School of Music

From its rich beginnings in the early 70's as the Pamoja Singers, the University of Georgia African American Choral Ensemble (AACE) has endeavored to keep concert halls and churches filled with the powerful sounds and wealth of indigenous musical treasures birthed from the African American experience. Since its earliest days at UGA, AACE has been a beacon tower of fellowship for the university community. Herein, people of many cultures come to share and learn the messages of hope, love and liberation that have sustained a people and this nation.

This Sunday April 28 the AACE, under the direction of associate professor Gregory Broughton, presents a free concert at 3 p.m. at the Milledge Avenue Baptist Church. The concert is free and the public is invited to attend.

Image courtesy of the UGA Choral Association.

Béla Fleck and the Flecktones are legendary performers with a serious worldwide following. Next week he will perform with our own UGA Symphony Orchestra in what I can only term as an extraordinary concert:

Béla Fleck, the world's premier banjo player, for his second Hodgson Hall appearance this season when he returns to perform his new Concerto for Banjo and Orchestra with the UGA Symphony Orchestra on March 26 at 8 p.m. with Mark Cedel conducting. The program also will include Debussy's "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun" and Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story.

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Fleck premiered his Concerto for Banjo and Orchestra with the Nashville Symphony in September 2011. The composer dedicated the concerto to the late Earl Scruggs and has described the piece as "a liberating experience for my efforts as a composer and hopefully for the banjo as well."

 

Since the 2011 premiere, Fleck has performed his new concerto with symphony orchestras around the country, but the Athens concert will be the first time Fleck has performed the piece with a university orchestra.

Nancy Riley, a graduate teaching assistant in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, will give a pre-concert lecture at 7:15 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.

With tickets at $25 (students' discouted), this will sell out in no time. In the greater context of dwindling audiences for classical music, this is the kind of innovative programming - without offering the 'pops' repertoire that is so common - we should and can applaud. Plus, it will be a wonderful opportunity for our student musicians.

Keyboard studies are an integral part of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music, and our faculty boasts American and International award-winning performers and teachers that draw some of the best student-musicians to study at UGA. And each year one date in the 2nd Thursday Scholarship Concert Series is dedicated to the piano - and to the piano maker that supplies the Hodgson School with instruments:

More than 25 pianists will join forces for "Steinway Spectacular," March 21 at 8 p.m. in the Hodgson Concert Hall.

The musicians, drawn from the ranks of the Hodgson School's keyboard faculty and students, have selected a broad variety of compositions for the performance, including arrangements of pieces by J.S. Bach, Handel, Gershwin, Wagner and Beethoven as well as original works by Milhaud, Lutosławski, Dahl and Schubert. The concert will culminate in Albert Lavignac's "Galop-March" for four pianos—requiring 24 hands for 352 keys.

"It's a real rarity to see this many pianists onstage at once," said Richard Zimdars, Despy Karlas Professor of Piano at the Hodgson School and one of the evening's performers. "There are interesting logistics in play with multiple people at one piano—simply in terms of space—and half the fun of putting together a program like this is collaborating with others and figuring those aspects out."

The concert, which marks UGA's 10th year as an All-Steinway School, is a celebration of the school of music sharing in the tradition of great American company Steinway & Sons, Zimdars said.

Hugh Hodgson School of Music associate professor of voice Stephanie Tingler is a highly decorated composer and performer, whose accolades include national finalist honors in the Bel Canto Opera, Opera Columbus Annual Operatic, and American Traditions competitions. On Monday Feb. 4, Tingler will present some of her favorite songs by American composers:

"This recital really is a cross-section of my favorite American compositions for voice," said Tingler. "One is the first song I ever worked on in English, another I consider the perfect American art song . . . some are pieces I've worked on all of my life."

In addition to exclusively featuring American composers, Tingler's performance also presents compositions that place heavy emphasis on their text.

"Many of the composers on this program were working with existing poems which they had memorized and internalized," said Tingler. "The words are of great importance to so many of these songs."

The concert is part of the Faculty Recital Series in the school of music and also features accompaniment by professor of piano Martha Thomas.

This is not to be missed. The UGA Opera Theatre presents a three-day production of Mozart's The Magic Flute:

The three-day engagement will feature the UGA Opera Theater in conjunction with the UGA Symphony Orchestra conducted by Daniel Bara, director of choral activities. Frederick Burchinal, director of opera, is the production's producer. Opera coach Kathryn Wright is responsible for musical preparation.

The opera will be performed in German with English supertitles provided by Carroll Freeman, who is serving as visiting stage director. A professor of opera at Georgia State University, Freeman's operatic career includes stage and television; he has twice received the National Opera Institute Award.

Feb. 15-17, in the Fine Arts Theatre, go here for tickets. If by some chance you haven't experienced our Opera Theatre productions, they are more than a treat - they are professional productions involving highly trained specialists in every area, from singing to music to staging. That we have this level of performance and production right here in Athens is a testament the faculty and student talent UGA attracts. This will be a serious, and seriously enjoyable, live production of Die Zauberflöte in German with English supertitles.

Image: Stage set for Mozart's Magic Flute, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, 1815, gouache, Staatliche Museen, Berlin. via Wikimedia Commons.

Evgeny Rivikin is one of the great international virtuosos on the faculty at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. Already a top award winner as some of the world's most prestigious piano competitions when he arrived at UGA in 1995, Rivkin has anchored the piano studio at the Hodgson School in the time since. His solo recitals have dazzled audiences around the world and at UGA, and his first-of-the-new-year 2nd Thursday concert performances continue this week:

Rivkin will present the first performance of the year for the University of Georgia Hugh Hodgson School of Music Jan. 10 at 8 p.m. in the Hodgson Concert Hall.

"It's a wonderful tradition to have Evgeny involved in these concerts," said Dale Monson, director of the school of music. "The level of care and musicianship he puts into his performances is always thrilling."

Rivkin's program will showcase works from composers spanning the late 18th to early 20th centuries, including Beethoven's Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor "Quasi una fantasia," commonly known as his "Moonlight Sonata." Other featured compositions include works by Franz Liszt, Alexander Scriabin and Achille-Claude Debussy.

Tickets for concert on Jan. 10 at 8 p.m. in Hugh Hodgson Cenrt Hall are $18, $5 for students, and available here.

A year ago last month, I had the distinct privilege of traveling to Italy with one of the premiere ensembles in the Hugh Hodgson School of Music - the ARCO Chamber Orchestra, under the direction of Franklin Professor of Music Levon Ambartsumian. ARCO was invited to play a UNESCO-sponsored concert in the renowned opera house La Fenice, in Venice. It was a very beautiful concert and delightful experience.

Now WUGA-TV will broadcast the one-hour documentary I made with ARCO as a part of that trip, ARCO in Venice:

"La Fenice is among the most prestigious and glorious performance venues in the world," said Dale Monson, director of the Hodgson School. "That our students had the opportunity to appear on stage there is a rare honor, reflecting not only the rising visibility of UGA, but also the skill and accomplishment of our students."

Comprised primarily of students from the Hodgson School of Music, ARCO Chamber orchestra also featured professor of cello David Starkweather, and academic professionals Shakhida Azimkhodjaeva on violin and Anatoly Sheludykov, piano. Originally formed in Moscow, Russia, ARCO was reprised at UGA by Ambartsumian upon his arrival in 1995.

The concert in Venice also featured guest solo performances by Brazilian oboist Alex Klein, Japanese cellist Dai Miyata and University Professor Milton Masciadri. Designated as a "UNESCO Artist for Peace" in 1998, Masciadri helped organize the Venice concert.

 The film will be shown Dec. 19 at 6 p.m. and then several times thereafter over the holidays.

The Red & Black had a nice rembrance of jazz great Dave Brubeck, who died wednesday at the age of 91. The article recalls that Brubeck was a guest artist in residence at the Hugh Hodgson School of Music in Feb. 2008. We are lucky to have shared our campus and opened our stages and classrooms to this visionary pianist and composer.

Hugh Hodgson School of Music graduate Richard Gnann (BMus, MMEd) is the author of Dreaming of the Redcoat Band, the true story of one child’s Bulldog dream — to march in Sanford Stadium with the University of Georgia Redcoat Band. The story personifies the Redcoat Marching Band legacy and experience for the hundreds of Franklin and UGA students who have comprised its ranks over the years. The book inspires children to follow their dreams and inspires parents to encourage childhood dreams. It is also an opportunity to support the band, as all profits generated from the book will be donated to the Redcoat Band.  

Gnann will be doing a guest storytime at Avid Books in Athens on Prince Avenue this Saturday, Dec. 8 at 1 pm.

Image: sample of artwork from the book (by Art Roche, Lamar Dodd School of Art BFA graduate).

The end of each fall semester at UGA is punctuated by a musical spectacular marking the unoffical beginnig of the holiday season: The Holiday Concerts:

The University of Georgia Holiday Concerts, a tradition of the Athens community, returns Nov. 29-30 at 8 p.m. in Hodgson Hall.

 

The concerts bring together the UGA Symphony Orchestra and choral ensembles under the baton of Professor Mark Cedel. The nearly 300 student singers and instrumentalists will lead an evening of selections that include new and familiar seasonal songs and an audience sing-along.

"The concerts have become a staple of the holiday season and remain some of our most popular performances each year," said Dale Monson, director of the UGA Hugh Hodgson School of Music. "The joyful choral and orchestral music we bring to the halls each year-much of it known and familiar-rekindles the cheer and goodwill we all feel around the holidays."

Look for fantastic choral and orchestra music from the combined forces of the two largest ensembles in the school of music, plus a little fun to along with. Not to be missed.