High school students visit USU for annual symposium

Top high school music students from Utah, Idaho and Nevada will perform in a free concert at the Kent Concert Hall in the Chase Fine Arts Center at Utah State University on Saturday at 3 p.m.

The concert is part of the two-day Eighth-Annual Tri-State High School Band Symposium, which started on Friday morning.

According to Sarah Keene, a student organizer for the event, high school band directors nominated top students. The nominations were sent to Thomas Rohrer, the director of bands at USU, and he accepted enough students to make two different bands: the Wind Ensemble, which is made up of the top 50 students, and the Symphony Band, which is comprised of the rest.

Keene said the students arrived between 9 and 10 a.m., auditioned until noon and were placed into one of the bands by 1 p.m.

Keene said on Friday they had a rehearsal, a break and another rehearsal. On Saturday morning they will have one more rehearsal before they perform.

According to Keene, this event is effective at recruiting music students to USU.

“It’s the biggest recruiter that our band department currently has,” Keene said. “There are plenty of students right now that are at USU who only came here because they participated as high school students in this honor band system.”

Omar Ordóñez, a USU student who attended the symposium three times when he was in high school, said because the students were nominated by their teachers, the experience is different than what they are used to.

“Not only are you around students who tend to be more committed than would be in the regular programs, but you’re also in ensembles that have better instrumentation,” Ordóñez said. “And they’re fuller because in some schools, the students will select which instrument they want to play, and sometimes you don’t have certain instruments or you have way too many of one kind of instrument.”

According to Rohrer, USU students will perform for the high school students in a concert on Friday at 8 p.m.

Rohrer said though the concert is designed for the students attending the symposium, it will be open to the public.

Rohrer said the purpose of the concert on Friday is for high school students to hear higher-level players perform.

“We always want them to hear what the goal is,” Rohrer said.

Musicians provide music at the museum every month

Harp players will perform at the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art in the Chase Fine Arts Center at Utah State University on Friday at 4 p.m.

The music department has been sending people to perform at the museum on the first Friday every month since September.

According Nadra Haffar, the museum’s curator, the idea came when the museum was closed.

“We wanted to give people a date that they could remember that the museum would be open,” Haffar said.

Haffar said social events are offered in other museums to give people a reason to want to come.

“So we had been brainstorming for a quite a while about ‘How do we do that?’ and ‘Should we give it a try?’” Haffar said. “So this last semester, we tried it.”

James Bankhead, the head of the music department, said the museum asked his department to provide music for people who want to visit it.

“It’s turned out to be really a cool thing,” Bankhead said. “A lot of people come, and we’ve had various students perform.”

Haffar said when the museum started having regular hours, people gave feedback that they wanted the music to continue on the first Friday of every month.

According to Haffar, the number of people attending the museum increased every time. She said about 10 to 12 people attended the first performance, and about 50 attended the last one.

“But we figured out that the first Friday at four is not a good time because a lot of students leave campus on Friday afternoons,” Haffar said. “So next semester we’re doing it on the third Thursday at three.”

Bankhead said the benefit that comes from these performances is the arts are interrelated.

“You can listen to music by Debussy and look at a Monet painting and realize they’re both impressionists, and they’re doing impressionistic things,” Bankhead said. “One’s visual and the other one’s aural, but it’s basically the same kind of concept. So you are strengthening both art forms by having them together.”

Children’s play is being shown to elementary school students

“Still Life with Iris” will be presented to general audiences at the Morgan Theatre in the Chase Fine Arts Center at Utah State University on Friday at 7:30 p.m. and on Saturday at 2 p.m.

There are only two show times because it is a Theater for Young Audiences, or TYA, play that is first being shown to elementary school students throughout Cache Valley in Utah.

According to Tori Benson, an actress in the play, the first performance started Wednesday morning. The next two will be on Thursday at 9:45 a.m. and on Friday at 11 a.m. The performances are taking place in the Morgan Theatre, and students from several schools are attending each one.

According to Kaitlyn Terry, the stage manager for the play, 650 students attended Wednesday’s performance.

Matt Omasta, who directed the play, said reactions from students have been overwhelmingly positive.

“It was a really great reaction,” Omasta said. “A lot of teachers were really positive about it.”

Rachel Van Kampen, an actress in the play, said though the play was written for children, it is applicable to adults as well.

“I think a question that it specifically addresses is ‘Who am I?’ which is a question I think everybody struggles with,” Van Kampen said. “And I think that’s an important thing about TYA is even though it is for children, there are things that adults can even learn from it.”

“It also asks the question ‘Who has authority and should they?’” Benson said. “I think that that can be really empowering for students and for adults to look at the world that they live in and say ‘Who has the power over my life?’ and ‘Is it me?’ and ‘Should it be?’”

Omasta said whoever wants to know how the play addresses these questions should see it.

Tickets can be purchased at the box office in the arts center or online at arts.usu.edu. 

USU Music Department holds second annual holiday concert

On Saturday evening, the audience attending “Joyful and Triumphant,” a holiday concert in the Kent Concert Hall at Utah State University, was told by James Bankhead, the head of the USU Music Department, not to applaud after each individual performance but to wait until the end.

The Christmas-themed show was done by the USU music department and featured various ensembles.

During each musical number, stage lights illuminated the performing ensemble. When the piece was finished, the next group was ready to perform. The pauses were brief and allowed enough time for the next ensemble to start.

“Think of just changing a channel,” said Bankhead, who coordinated the show. “That’s what you’re doing. There’s no applause in between.”

According to Bankhead, this is the second year the department has done this show. He said the planning started in August.

According to Josiah Cordes, a cello player in the show, the orchestra had rehearsed for this concert for about three weeks.

Bankhead said one of the benefits of the show is it brings the music department together. He said this is the only time in which the jazz ensembles, the orchestra, the choirs, classical guitar ensembles and the flute choir play in the same show.

“We never get to hear each other because we’re doing all our things separately,” Bankhead said.

Corey Evans, the producer of the show, said getting all of the performers together was the biggest challenge.

“Music students are notoriously very busy,” Evans said. “They’ve got their normal classes, and then at night they do concerts and rehearsals, and getting seven or eight different ensembles together has been tough.”

According to Evans, proceeds go toward student scholarships.

Holiday sale this week will be the first to include both ceramics and printmaking

The holiday ceramics and print sale will take place Thursday from 5 to 9 p.m., Friday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. in the Tippets Exhibit Hall located in the Chase Fine Arts Center at Utah State University.

This will be the first time the USU Ceramics Guild and the USU Printmaking Guild have their holiday sales together.

Holland Larsen, the president of the USU Printmaking Guild, said both guilds have had their own holiday sales in the past. She said there has been a print sale for at least seven years.

According to John Neely, a Ceramics Guild adviser, the sale for his guild has been going on since he started working at USU 29 years ago.

“A huge benefit for the printmaking side is that the ceramics people have been doing it for so long that so many people know about it and come to it,” said Laura Bassett, a printmaking major.  “And when they come to the ceramics, they’ll be able to get printmaking as well without having to go to two different sales. So that’ll be cool.”

For Kirsten Taylor, a ceramics student who will have some of her work sold, the advantage in combining the sales is she can see other forms of art.

“You don’t only draw inspiration from ceramic artists,” said Taylor. “You can draw inspiration from other media.”

According to Larsen, 30 percent of the sales will go to her guild so its members can go to the annual Southern Graphics Council International Printmaking Conference, where they can interact with other printmakers from different parts of the world.

According to Neely, proceeds for the ceramics sales will go toward a variety of things including scholarship funds, equipment purchases and visiting artists. 

“That’s the sole budget source that we have,” Neely said.

Besides proceeds, Neely said the Ceramics Guild benefits from the sale in that it gives students experience.

“It’s the nature of working in visual arts that when your work is going to be displayed, you get very involved in it, very concerned, very committed to making it look good,” Neely said. “When your ego’s on the line, you perform.”