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Here are some current stories from the College of Performing and Visual Arts at UNC. Don’t forget to check out our calendar of Spring Semester events at http://www.arts.unco.edu/calendar/
The first event is the January 17th Faculty Recital, Melissa Peña, oboe, Milne Auditorium, 8pm, Tickets 351.2200
 has picked the 10 feature stories from 2011 that they think best capture the spirit of the university and its students, faculty and staff. Clink on the link to read the stories:
http://www.unco.edu/news/releases.aspx?id=3489&utm_source=December%2030%202011&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=unctoday
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This Creative Capitol exhibition highlights visual arts faculty from fourteen higher education campuses across Colorado. A broad range of media, subject matter, and disciplines show the diversity and the overall unity of Colorado's art in higher education.
UNC School of Art & Design faculty members, Lynn Cornelius, Lauren Eisen, Tom Stephens, Andrew Svedlow, and Anna Ursyn, have been selected to show their work in the Creative Capitol Exhibit Highlighting Faculty in Higher Education. Their pieces are on display at the Colorado State Capitol thru May 14, 2012.
The exhibition will be on display at the Colorado Capitol Building in the Lt. Governor's offices and the basement rotunda through May 13, 2012. The Capitol is open to visitors from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday-Friday.
http://www.coloarts.state.co.us/programs/creative/index.htm
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 spent most of the school's winter break on a multi-city performance tour in China. The 47-member group, under the direction of Music Professor Ken Singleton, left Dec. 21 for a two-week trip that included performances in Shanghai, Beijing and Qingquan.
The ensemble, whose ranks include both undergraduate and graduate students, performed an "American sampler" consisting of 13 pieces, most of which the audiences had not heard before.
They were accompanied by Richard Mayne, associate director of bands at UNC, and Assistant Professor of Music Lei Weng, who joined the group on piano for the concert's closing number, George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Weng is a Chinese national, and the trip was organized through his Chinese agent's management group, which funded the majority of the trip's costs. Additional funding is came from the students, the UNC School of Music and other campus organizations.
The Wind Ensemble is comprised of the university's foremost musicians. Essentially an orchestral woodwind/brass/percussion section supplemented by saxophones and keyboards, the ensemble explores challenging one-player-per-part wind music by a variety of composers. Membership is determined by audition and is open to music and non-music majors.
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Jason Vesey – The Lion King
Derek Hansen – Anything Goes
Alena Watters – Sister Act
Josh Buscher – Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Jenny Fellner – Wicked
Victoria Matlock – Million Dollar Quartet
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Victoria Matlock |
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Megan Van De Hey was named Actress of the Year in the Denver Post’s 2011 Ovation Awards. Megan has also been cast in the upcoming production of the musical Chess at the Arvada Center and will appear 2012 summer in the Little Theatre of the Rockies production of Next to Normal. http://www.denverpost.com/theater/ci_19604222 |
Melissa Kidd who has worked for the past two season as the set costumer on The Closer will be moving to a spin off TV show entitled Major Crimes when The Closer wraps production this season. Collen Munch is now employed as an over-hire carpenter at the Denver Center for the Performing arts. Karli Kaiser just appeared on an episode of the TV show Reno 911 with Nicey Nash and will also appear in an upcoming music video for Matthew McConaughey. Travis Shupe has been promoted to Eos Operator and Assistant Lighting Designer at Harpo Studios in Chicago, Il. Lynnsey Ooten has been cast in the youth outreach touring productions (Shakespeare-To-Go) of Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival. Lynnsey will teach as well as perform. Rose Sawvel, MM 2008, was recently chosen to sing the role of Serpetta in La Finta Giardiniera (Mozart) in the highly prestigious Merola Opera Program sponsored by the San Francisco Opera. Laura Bateman, DA 2011, was selected to receive the Graduate Dean's Citation for Excellence, which was conferred at commencement in December.
selected through blind audition to perform for the National Choral Conductor's Organization biennial conference during fall semester. The Men's Glee Club was featured in the First Congregational Church Advent Concert Series, performing the distinguished "Missa Cum Jubilo" by French composer Maurice Durufle. Organist Alice Crawford played the church's new pipe organ.
Consider the gift of a great experience as you plan your holiday shopping. Greeley is blessed with wonderful opportunities for high quality arts, entertainment and enrichment. The UNC College of Performing and Visual Arts Box Office will be open weekday afternoons through December 22nd to help you with gift certificates or ticket purchases for a wide variety of music and theatre events or community arts classes.
Gift items could include the award-winning University Symphony Orchestra, the UNC/Greeley Jazz Festival, or Ragtime at Langworthy Theatre. Perhaps you are presenting a young musician with a first guitar. Why not add a series of guitar lessons offered by UNC Community Arts? New camera or a paint set? Community Arts has low-key, affordable lessons to match.
The UNC arts box office is located in Frasier Hall on 10th Avenue at 17th Street. They can be reached by phone at 351-2200 Monday through Friday noon to 5:30pm.
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UNC Community Arts and City of Greeley "Paint the Town" project join forces to create a mural on the old Frank's Seed and Hatchery building. The mural, called 'hands in the dirt, head in the sky' was the culmination of a class that looked at mural painting from the historic to the very practical aspects of large scale public paintings.
More photos...
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Like Father, Like Daughter
Tom and Gillian McNally share a father-daughter moment.
Photo, Video / Katie Owston
Tom McNally and his daughter, Gillian McNally, are mainstays in UNC's theater programs. In the next week, they'll be honored by their peers on the national and regional levels, respectively, with Gillian receiving the same award her father earned 16 years ago.
Read the complete story here. |
Award-winning UNC Jazz Lab Band I featured at Telluride Jazz Festival in August
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 Opera Theatre Students Garner Rave Reviews for Performances in Germany
"I just wanted to let you know how well all of the UNC students did in Germany this year! I sang the Queen of the Night in the professional performance of The Magic Flute! The reviewer gave us excellent reviews." - Melissa Dalton
The Link for the Review of our Student Performance
The Link for the Review of my debut in Bad Schwalbach
Powerful Coloratura Thrills the Audience (Translation of German Review)
The same can be said of Melissa Sue Dalton. The student from the University of Northern Colorado culminated her six-week study period in this production in the role of the Queen of the Night. Rightly so, for even the charisma with which she rose in her first appearance down the stairs was highly professional. She also impressed us with clean intonation, a large voice and especially with her powerful coloratura, for which she was rightly received with great applause.
School’s Starting - Gear Up! Can having UNC College of Performing and Visual Arts swag make you happy? Buy some and find out! We have t-shirts, sweatshirts, water bottles, mugs, bags, bears and more. Order by phone from the PVA box office at 970-351-2200. All items available by individual order and can be picked up or shipped in approx. 10 days. |
UNC alumnus Jake Mendes
Nominated for Theatre Award
School of Theatre Arts and Dance graduate Jake Mendes is nominated for a New York Innovative Theatre Award (IT Awards) for Outstanding Ensemble for his work in The Drowsy Chaperone, which was produced by The Gallery Players.
Jake said this about his experience, “I couldn't ask for a better show to have been a part of for my first production in New York!”
“It is a rare show where the entire ensemble not only adores each other, but adores their work and the story that they are telling. This infectious trait sent audiences beaming from ear-to-ear,” said producer Heather S. Curran.
The nominees were announced at a sold-out event in August, 2011 that was attended by nearly 500 artists and guests. The awards will be presented at a ceremony on September 19th.
A little about the IT Awards which are given annually to honor individuals and organizations who have achieved artistic excellence in Off-Off-Broadway theatre: New York IT Awards recognize the unique and essential role Off-Off-Broadway plays in contributing to American and global culture, and believe that publicly recognizing excellence in Off-Off-Broadway theatre will expand audience awareness and appreciation of the full New York theatre experience.
http://www.nyitawards.com
Melissa Pena, Assistant Professor of Oboe, was a member of the Colorado Music Festival as part of the woodwind quintet chamber performances. She was Principle Oboe with the Astoria Music Festival in Astoria, Oregon where she amazed audiences with her performances of Beethoven and Mahler. Melissa and the Astoria Music Festival are up for The American Prize in the Opera Performance Category for their work last year of Wozzeck. She is also busy with the Santa Fe New Music Ensemble where she’ll be performing Louis Andriessen’s Worker’s Union and she will complete her summer work with the Santa Fe Opera for their production of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.
Professor of Percussion Dr. Gray Barrier, along with four UNC percussionists (Lindsey Pietrek, Adam Davis, Jessica Darling, and Dan Oblunda) attended the Alan Abel Percussion Seminar at Temple University in Philadelphia in June. Here’s a picture of Gray’s group with famed percussionist Alan Abel. |
Marian Hesse, our horn Professor, traveled to El Salvador as a guest of the U
S Embassy with her Grammy award-winning group the Chestnut Brass Company. She and the Company were interviewed on TV and radio shows and held master classes, youth programs, and recitals. In June, Marian performed with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra on their Wagner concert and she recently was in San Francisco for the International Horn Society Symposium, a group for which she serves on the Advisory Board. She will also be doing some promotion events for her two new books of horn routines, published this past April.
Dr. Melissa Malde, Professor of Voice, has been at Montclair State University in New Jersey at the Andover Educators Conference where she performed a duet of Lee Holby as part of the opening concert and where she is touting her book, What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body. She will also be in Jacksonville, Florida, for the annual board meeting of the National Association of Teachers of Singing.
In the School of Theater Arts and Dance, Brian Hapcic has recently returned from Prague where he worked on the lighting design for the USA National Exhibit for the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Space and Design. His colleague, Andrea Moon, Assistant Professor and Head of Theatre Studies has been traveling the continent along with fellow faculty member Gillian McNally as they both presented papers at the ITYARN/ASSITEJ Conference in Copenhagen and Malmo, including a joint presentation on producing and touring the youth theatre piece El Viaje de Beatriz. Dr. Moon went from Denmark to Seattle for a three-week long Pacific Performance Project (P3) Approaches to Physical Performance Intensive and Master Teacher Training. Andrea is working with the P3 group on a potential teaching/performance trip to Japan in 2013. In August, Andrea will be taking part in a more local event in Boulder with the International Aerial Dance Festival. Here’s a picture of our ever-intrepid Assistant Professor of Theatre Education, Gillian McNally in Copenhagen – Ms. McNally took time out of her travels to co-director with Professor Connie Bethards in Art and Design our summer Creative Spaces camp for 12-18 year olds. |
Associate Professor of Saxophone, Dr. Andrew Dahlke completed his sabbatical this past spring semester by recording two CDs of Bach’s 6 cello suites on soprano, alto, tenor, and baritone saxophones for White Pine Music in Michigan. He also made a DVD with Capitol Saxophone Quartet of Philip Glass’s Saxophone Quartet Concert. Dr. Dahlke will also be performing with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Vail Bravo! Music festival, and he will be performing at the Aspen Music Festival playing woodwinds in West Side Story and playing Shostakovich with the Festival Orchestra under the baton of Leonard Slatkin.
Dr. Ron Brooks in our trumpet program shared the news that our recent graduate in music theory, Dr. Jittapim Yamprai is presenting part of her dissertation work at the International Conference on Thai Studies in Bangkok this summer.
Our Director of Choral Activities, Dr. Galen Darrough has gotten some very good news for our choral program, the National Collegiate Choral Organization will be holding their 2011 conference here in Colorado this fall semester where Dr. Darrough will guide our students in a concert of Argentine choral music. Dr. Darrough has also been asked to present a session at the next ACDA divisional conference in Dallas next February. Our highly accomplished UNC Concert Choir will be singing the Bach St. John Passion with Simon Carrington in March, 2012 under the direction of Dr. Darrough.
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