Travel by College of PVA Faculty and Students
Takes Them Around the World

Beethoven returns to Salaya, as the popular Symphony No. 3 “Eroica” is performed. Guest Conductor Dariusz Mikulski will lead Thailand Philharmonic Orchstra in the Asian premier of US Composer Nancy Galbraith’s Danza de los Duendes. Also featured is viola soloist Juliet White-Smith, president of the International Viola Society, performing William Walton’s Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. Concerts are December 16 and 17, 2011. http://www.thailandphil.com/beethovens-eroica/

Connie Stewart spent a week and a half in Venice, Italy to view the  54th Venice Biennale international art exposition,  a forum for dissemination of  current developments in international art. Eighty nine countries participated  by  hosting a  national pavilion featuring selected artists from their country.  Another central show titled ILLUMinations, directed by Bice  Curiger highlighted 83 renowned artists from all over the world and many other official collateral  events or unofficial art shows were shown throughout the city. Stewart is using the Venice Biennale as an opportunity to  research new artists, trends and philosophies  in the current art world for presentation in her ART 389/680 and 690  Contemporary Art classes, and to examine contemporary art practice as a model for arts  education in her art education classes and her work with the Center for Integrated Arts Education.

UNC Opera students enjoyed great success in their annual perfromance tour in Germany. Melissa Dalton tells us,"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."

Review of our Student Performance
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 of Music faculty Gal Faganel, cello, and Caleb Harris, piano, conducted an extensive recital and master class tour of Kuwait, Slovenia, and Croatia in May, 2011. Their host in Kuwait was Abdulaziz Alyoser, a student at UNC who recently completed his master of music education degree and will be entering the doctoral degree in music education in the fall of 2011. Included in their itinerary was a recital in Kuwait  at the residence of the United States Ambassador. Throughout the tour, Faganel and Harris had multiple opportunities to work with professional musicians, faculty at the local conservatories and universities, and prospective students. They say they were consistently well received and look forward to continuing and building the many relationships fostered by this unique opportunity.

The UNC Wind Ensemble will perform an extensive concert tour in six to eight major cities in China, from December 24th, 2011 to January 3rd, 2012.  Professor Lei Weng will be the featured piano soloist performing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with the Wind Ensemble.
 
In April of 2011, Marian Hesse, Grammy award-winning professor of horn, traveled to El Salvador for a week of events with the Chestnut Brass Company sponsored by the United States Embassy. While there, the Chestnut Brass Company presented three recitals, six educational presentations, a performance at the ambassador's as well as numerous radio and television activities.
 
Students of Marian Hesse, Taylor Townsend and Kathryn Zevenbergen, have continued their studies in Switzerland at the Zurich University for the Arts and at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italia. Scott Hoehn toured Europe this summer with the Colorado Youth Orchestra, prior to beginning his master's degree at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, MD.

 
Galen Darrough, director of choral activities, was awarded his sabbatic leave in Spring of 2011 to study Latin American Choral Music. His research included translation of Spanish language articles on the music of Argentina and several other countries and especially the collection of repertoire from South America. Under his direction, the Concert Choir was accepted as one of twelve collegiate choral ensembles from the US and Canada to perform at the biennial conference of the National Collegiate Choral Organization. The conference, held in recent years at the Cincinnati Conservatory and Yale University, held at Colorado State University, November 3-5, 2011. His program will be dedicated to the choral music of Argentina, and will feature works based on the dance forms of the tango and chacarera, as well as contemporary works by some of Argentina's most respected composers.
 
Lei Weng has been working with the Tianjin Conservatory of Music, one of the top conservatories in China, to establish the sister partner school programs with UNC. As the result of this work, the City of Tianjin and Tianjin Conservatory invited UNC’s School of Music director David Caffey and Weng to attend the sister-school signing ceremony in Tianjin in February, 2011, where they signed the official agreement of partnership and exchange program between UNC and TCM.

Jonathan Bellman traveled by invitation to the University of Heidelberg, Germany, to give a paper at a colloquium celebrating the bicentennial of Liszt's birth.  His paper was titled “Franz Liszt and the Anxiety of National Identity.” The meeting itself was titled Music Between Nationalistic and Cosmopolitan Thought—Anniversary Reflections on Franz Liszt, 1811–2011, at the University of Heidelberg.
 
The College of Performing and Visual Arts and the School of Music are hosting a Visiting Scholar from Tokyo, Japan.  His name is Hidesato Uermura.  He is on the piano faculty at the Musashino Academia Musicae, a very prestigious music conservatory in Tokyo.  He arrived last April 2011 and will return to Japan in March 2012.  He gave a recital and served on the faculty of the Colorado International Piano Academy this summer.
 
In July 2011, School Director David Grapes traveled to London to coordinate a new international exchange program between the UNC School of Theatre Arts and Dance and the Theatre Department at Middlesex University.
 
Lighting Professor Brian Hapcic travelled to the Czech Republic to participate in the 11th Prague Quadrille – Competitive Exhibition of Scenography and Theatre Architecture. Professor Hapcic helped coordinate and construct the exhibits coming from the United States for the USA National Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Space and Design.  While there, Hapcic also saw performance art presentations from many of the participating countries, got an insiders-only tour of the backstage workings of Lanterna Magica, and toured a completely restored working Baroque theatre in Chesky Crumlov, complete with the actual costumes, props and stage machinery from 1725.

Andrea Moon, Assistant Professor and Head of Theatre Studies, has been traveling in Europe 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 is currently working with the Pacific Performance Project group on a potential teaching/performance trip to Japan in 2013.
 
Two of our Theatre Education students, Christine Ogawa and Amanda Meltzer, fulfilled their pre-student teaching experience, STEP 363, in Thailand this summer.
 
Nat Wickham, Professor of Trombone and Euphonium) was the resident trombonist at the Jazz en Vercors jazz festival in Villard de Lans, France in July and August. He taught jazz performance to students of all ages from France and Spain, and performed a dozen main stage and small venue concerts during the festival. He will be performing again at the festival next summer.
 
Joel Nagel (MM 2010) continues working as a jazz trombonist aboard Royal Caribbean Cruise lines throughout Europe. Most of his work has been travelling in England, Spain and Italy. Joel was the winner of the 2010 National Jazz Trombone Competition while attending UNC.
 
Piano professor Lei Weng was invited as the only judge from the U.S to judge the National Youth Piano Competition in China. The judge panel consists of chair of piano from all major conservatoires in China, as well as international judges from Russia, Korea and the US. This is one of the major national piano competitions in China, which had more than a hundred competitors. Weng also toured more than a dozen cities in Asia this year, and gave series of recitals and master classes at major conservatories and universities in China, Taiwan and Korea. He toured in Europe in September, giving concerts and master classes, and judged a national piano competition in Italy.
 
Xiangyu Zhao, international piano student from China, was the runner-up at the Music Teachers National Association’s Colorado Young Artist Competition, which was held at CU Boulder. Xiangyu is a junior piano major. A major piano competition for students in Colorado, MTNA competition features the best piano students from the major music schools in Colorado.

Other international activities in recent years:

Andrew Svedlow, dean of the College of Performing and Visual Arts and professor of Art and Design, was awarded a Fulbright Scholar grant to lecture and conduct research in Ukraine March through May 2010. Svedlow taught graduate-level courses on arts administration, cultural management and creative leadership at the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture and the Lviv National Academy of Arts. He also served as an advisor in helping the academies create graduate programs in arts management. In 2007, Svedlow was selected for a Fulbright scholar grant and traveled to numerous institutions in Japan to provide expertise on effective models of arts administration.

Dean Andrew Svedlow has been named to a second year as Chair of the International Council of Fine Arts Deans tInternational Task Force on Arts Advocacy in higher education.

Director of the School of Theatre Arts & Dance David Grapes spent two weeks in Ontario, Canada. Grapes conducted performance research at the Stratford and Shaw Festival Libraries and Archives and attended 18 productions.

Theatre professor Ken Womble spent 10 days in Australia. He traveled to Perth where he met with the theatre faculty and administrators of Edith Cowan University. During his visit UNC established an articulation agreement that facilitates student and faculty exchanges between the two institutions.
 
Marian Hesse traveled to Australia for the International Horn Conference. Hesse serves on the Advisory Council for that group. Hesse also traveled with the Chestnut Brass Company to Jeju, Korea for their 5th visit performing as well as adjudicating an international brass competition. She plays French horn with the group.

UNC School of Music horn students travel the globe: Charlotte Harsha spent a spring England; Katrena True spent summer in England; Nikki Witzel spent several weeks in Czech; Jenny Atkins spent a summer  Mexico; Kathryn Zevenbergen is spent year in Germany.

Juliet White Smith, viola performance professor, was interviewed by The Strad Magazine, Britain’s “voice of the string music world since 1890.“ I am quite proud of this opportunity and of how it turned out. The editor has been very supportive of me and of the American Viola Society.  My connection with this magazine has afforded the UNC string area the opportunity to have a listing in their “degrees supplement” to the May 2010 issue.“ 

Juliet White-Smith, viola performance professor, presented master classes and performed in South Africa as part of the 37th International Viola Congress. School of Music composition faculty member Paul Elwood joined Juliet in South Africa for a performance of his composition, Capricious Apparitions.

Paul Elwood, assistant professor of music, spent a week in a 1,000-year-old church in a medieval village in Provence, France, recording a CD with saxophonist Raphael Imbert, bassist Pierre Fenichel, and singer Marion Rampal. The recording includes compositions of Thelonious Monk and Albert Ayler, features originals by Elwood, and traditional Appalachian and bluegrass tunes. Paul was a featured solo performer at the 4th of July celebration at the U.S. Ambassador’s residence in London, at the Consulate General’s residence in Marseille, and at the Festival de Martigues in France. Paul joined UNC faculty member Juliet White-Smith and violist Tim Deighton in South Africa, for the premiere of Elwood’s Capricious Apparitions for two violas and bowed banjo, before returning to France.

Music faculty members William Wilson and Caleb Harris spend a good part of the summer preparing, then traveling to Germany as part of our annual opera program in Europe.  It’s definitely not your average summer intern gig. Twenty-two voice students and three piano students from the School of Music spent a month of summer break in Germany and Spain on stage as members of a professional European opera chorus. The performance tour was organized Wilson in association with Opera Classica Europa and the International Opera School in Bad Schwalbach, Germany. Previous tours have included performances at Versailles, France, as well.

UNC Community Arts, Greeley Youth Programs and the High Plains Library District joined forces to present a workshop by British book artist Paul Johnson.

School of Art and Design graduate student Stephanie Burchett was selected in national and international competitions to present photographs in exhibitions in Soho in NYC and in China. 

Anna Ursyn in the School of Art and Design has had her computer generated artworks selected as part of the Ukulele Festival, and she was asked to serve as Associate Editor of the International Journal on Creative Interfaces and Computer Graphics.

Melissa Malde (Associate Professor of Voice) sang the role of Nancy Tang in Nixon in China by John Adams with Vancouver Opera (British Columbia, Canada) in March 2010.  

Associate Professor of Music Andy Dahlke performed as a soloist with the Gangnam symphony in Korea.

Gillian McNally, a professor in the University of Northern Colorado*s School of Theatre Arts and Dance, recently attended a one-week intensive Spanish language immersion program at Habla Center for Language and Culture in Merida, Mexico. The program offers classes in language and teaches through arts-integrated methods. Researchers from Harvard and the Chicago arts education community observe, participate and write about the effectiveness of the work being conducted at the center. McNally was also invited by the director of this program to return to conduct workshops for teachers and students next year. In addition, STAD staff is pleased to report that the Habla Center has chosen UNC’s Vanessa Ramirez as their intern for their summer program. Last year this prestigious internship went to a graduate student at Brown, so this is a major accomplishment for Ramirez.

UNC School of Music Director of Choral Activities, Dr. Galen Darrough received an e-mail from Joel DuBois from Iraq in early November. Joel is currently deployed to Iraq with the 1st Cavalry Band. In Galen’s words: “Dr. (Sergeant) Dubois, (DA Choral Conducting 2007), asked if I could provide him some used carol books/materials from the UNC choral holdings, or if I could recommend any resources for him and his military band detachment and some of his peers who had hoped to do some caroling for the holidays. My thoughts were that we could surely do far better than that, so I called the representatives from Oxford University Press in New York, to see if they could donate some new carol books/anthologies to his unit. They generously sent Joel copies of new carol books from their London office.”

Kevin Sims is cast as the standby for Timon/Zazu/Pumbaa on the Gazelle Company of Disney’s The Lion King. Kevin will join the international tour in Vancouver.

Cong Ji, international student from China, won first prize at the Music Teachers National Association’s Colorado State Young Artist Competition, which was held at Lamont School of Music, University of Denver. Cong is a senior piano major and student of keyboard faculty member Lei Weng. A major piano competition for students in Colorado, it features the best piano students from the major music schools in Colorado.

Ryan Grassmeyer, a recent graduate of the School of Theatre Arts and dance, completed a television pilot with John Lovitz called THE ROAD TO HOLLYWOOD and a new television series called LIVIN LOUD that was just accepted into MIPTV, the television festival at Cannes.

Dr. Dennis Morimoto, Director or the School of Art and Design, went to Oxford, England, to be part of an invitation only conference on arts and technology. He facilitated a number of working groups dealing with contemporary advanced technology and the arts.

Mark Fetkewicz, professor of graphic design, had a very successful visit to England where he presented a paper at the New Views 2 International Conference at the University of the Arts in London. 

Professor Anna Ursyn has also been busy with projects with the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques in LA and having some of her animations accepted for Squardi Sonori 2008 a Festival of Media and Time Based Art originating in Italy, her work was also accepted for “Common Ground” an international traveling exhibition.  She’s also been invited to deliver a talk at the International Conference on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques hosted by ACM/SIGGRAPH. 

Dr. Ken Singleton traveled to China as a clinician for “A Colorado Band Salute to the 2008 Beijing Olympics” and he led performances in the Forbidden City Concert Hall and at the Great Wall.

Marian Hesse was in Korea and performed five concerts with the Chestnut Brass Company and served as a juror for the International Brass Competition held in Korea.

Dr. Bob Ehle, composer and professor of music, has been traveling the globe transcribing folk music for his indigenous music recording project. Upon his return to Greeley, he has been spending his time arranging those songs for ensembles and solo performances. Ehle also received a grant from the University’s Diversity in Education Research Initiative to help support several student assistants in this endeavor.

Bil Jackson, professor of clarinet, was featured artist at the Japan Clarinet Society’s Annual Conference in Tokyo, and taught master classes and gave performances in Bangkok.

Dr. Russell Guyver, our resident Maestro and Professor of Music, traveled to Brazil to be part of the Rio International Cello Encounter.

Lei Weng, Assistant Professor of Piano Performance, was out and about performing and conducting master classes in conservatories throughout China, including his alma mater, the Central Conservatory in Beijing.

Gillian McNally, professor of theatre education, took part in an international conference on theatre in Adelaide, Australia.

Alumna Amanda Earls just completed a tour of the UK which included the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in a production of The Great American Trailer Park Musical.