Associate Professor and Music Department Chair, Dr. Cynthia Hutton will retire this Spring 2020 after 26 years of teaching at SOU. Dr. Hutton’s teaching contributions to the Music program at SOU included teaching courses in music education, music theory, aural skills, conducting, and for 24 years she was the Director of Bands at SOU.

 

The Oregon Center for the Arts (OCA) at Southern Oregon University presents the Tutunov Season Finale, a celebratory concert to conclude a successful year of outstanding performances in the Alexander Tutunov’s 2016-2017 Piano Series. The concert will be Friday May 12th at 7:30 PM at the SOU Music Recital Hall. 

The Tutunov Season Finale will feature special guest Madeline Abel-Kerns, the internationally renowned soprano (see bio below), who will join Alexander Tutunov on stage for the Oregon Premiere performance of Sergei Prokofiev’s version of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling. Alexander Tutunov will also perform the Sonata in B-minor by Franz Liszt and Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7. He will also perform audience favorites, such as Liebestraum by Listzt and Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev.

Alexander Tutunov, the founder of the series, is Professor of Piano and Artist in Residence at Southern Oregon University. He is widely recognized as one of the most outstanding virtuosos of the former Soviet Union. First Prize winner of the Belarusian National Piano Competition and winner of the Russian National Piano Competition, Tutunov’s playing was described by Soviet Culture, Moscow, as “exhilarating and inspired, and which demonstrated a unique talent.”

All tickets are $20 general admission and free to students, and are being sold through the Oregon Center for the Arts Box Office. The box office is located in the SOU Music Building, off South Mountain Avenue, adjacent from the Theatre building, which is currently under construction. OCA Box office hours are noon to 6 PM Monday through Friday. Tickets can be purchased with a credit card over the phone by calling 541-552-6348 or in person at the box office.

About Madeline Abel-Kerns

Named the “mezzo-toned soprano” (Frankfurter Allgemeine) with a “warm and expansive voice” (Cool Cleveland), who “filled the house with thrilling sound” (San Francisco Chronicle), Madeline Abel-Kerns has garnered awards in every genre in which she sings.

In January 2016, she joined SOU as an instructor of voice for the Oregon Center for the Arts. Last May, she and Dr. Rhett Bender performed “I Never Saw Another Butterfly,” a song cycle for soprano and saxophone composed by Lori Laitman, with text from children of the Terezin Concentration Camp. Tonight, Ms. Abel-Kerns is thrilled to perform Sergei Prokofiev’s “The Ugly Duckling” with Dr. Alexander Tutunov at the piano. It has been twenty years since these two artists have collaborated, and long overdue!

Opera and oratorio credits include soprano roles in Aida, Albert Herring, Beethoven’s 9th, Carmen, Cavalleria, Creation, Die Walküre, Der Rosenkavalier, Madama Butterfly, Messiah, Siegfried, Tosca, and the Mozart, Rutter, & Verdi Requiem with the Bahamas Music Society, Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Heidelberg Opera, Hessische-Rundfunk Orchestra, National Chorale, NY Choral Society, Opera Orchestra of NY, Sacramento Opera, SF Choral Society and SF Opera, among others. Concert and theatre credits include opera, sacred music, musicals, cabaret, dinner theatre and original works in the Bahamas, Germany, and throughout the U.S. in Arizona, California, New York, Oregon, Ohio, Utah, Virginia and Washington.

She has taught voice, breath, acting, and physical conditioning at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Hebrew Union College, Holy Names College, James Madison University, Mary Baldwin College, Southern Oregon University and New York University, and has presented master classes and workshops around the country, in the Bahamas, and abroad.

Supplementing professional training in California, Germany, Oregon and New York, Ms. Abel-Kerns earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Vocal Performance, summa cum laude with Distinction, at Mary Baldwin University in 2013. She is a long-time union member in good standing of AEA, PWSA, and SAG-AFTRA.

 

The Oregon Center for the Arts (OCA) at Southern Oregon University presents Groove Machine, a concert by OCA’s in-residence ensembles the Cascade Clarinet Consort and the Siskiyou Saxophone Orchestra. The concert will be Tuesday May 30th at 7:30 PM at the SOU Music Recital Hall.

The Groove Machine concert will feature the music of American composer Marc Mellits. In addition to Black for two bass clarinets. Mellits’s Groove Canon, Mara’s Toys, December and Groove Machine from his work Revolution will be performed by the Siskiyou Saxophone Orchestra.  Composer Marc Mellits is one of the leading American composers of his generation, and is often considered a miniaturist, composing works that are comprised of short, contrasting movements or sections.  His music is eclectic, all-encompassing, colourful, and always has a sense of forward motion.

The Siskiyou Saxophone Orchestra (SSO) is renowned in the saxophone world for their commitment to expanding musical possibilities.  Tours of the SSO have included Asia, Europe and Mexico.  As the guests of the Longkou Jingsheng Musical Instrument Co., the SSO performed at the China Music Trade Show in Shanghai and at the northern seaside resort city of Yantai.  The Cascade Clarinet Consort (CCC) and SSO have performed with guest artists Edmund Welles and Globe Saxophone Quartet as well as live on the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Green Show, Britt Festival, Oregon Music Educators’ Conference and the KTVL-Medford Channel 10 Morning News. They were honored by being selected for a performance at the XVth World Saxophone Congress in Bangkok, Thailand and in 2012 a consortium of the SSO opened for Branford Marsalis at the XVIth World Saxophone Congress in St. Andrews, Scotland.

The local and internationally recognized Siskiyou Saxophone Orchestra attracts students from all over the world and is led by Yamaha Performing Artist and Professor at Southern Oregon University Rhett Bender. Go to saxophone.sou.edu for more information about saxophone and clarinet activities at Southern Oregon University. Professor Bender states that he is “particularly excited about this concert because it exploits the interlocking rhythms written by one of America’s most commissioned composers, Marc Mellits. His music for saxophone and clarinet is an engaging musical journey.”

All tickets are general admission and are being sold through the Oregon Center for the Arts Box Office. The box office is located in the SOU Music Building, off South Mountain Avenue, adjacent from the Theatre building, which is currently under construction. OCA Box office hours are noon to 6 PM Monday through Friday. Tickets can be purchased with a credit card over the phone by calling 541-552-6348 or online at oca.sou.edu/box-office.

 

Ashland Daily Tidings
Posted Aug. 21, 2016 at 10:40 AM

Free screenings of a series of six film noir classics in the garden at Hearsay Restaurant in Ashland kick off Tuesday, Aug. 23, with “Scarlet Street,” a 1945 film directed by Fritz Lang starring Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea.

The series, dubbed “Trigger Warnings: A Celebration of Film Noir,” is hosted by Southern Oregon University professor of noir literature Bobby Arellano. Austin Gurwell, a former student of his, co-curates.

Learn more about “Trigger Warnings” on the full article.

Ashland Daily Tidings

Posted Jul. 21, 2016

As the Schneider Museum at OCA moves from strength to strength, most recently with its participation in the prestigious, statewide Portland Biennial, Scott Malbaurn has moved from his interim position as executive director of the museum into a permanent position. Quills and Queues caught up with Malbaurn to ask him about his vision for the future.

Learn more about the new museum Director on the full article.