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Oregon Fringe Festival features Mark Applebaum and James Donlon

The Oregon Fringe Festival is underway! The festival kicked off Wednesday to host a variety of local art, film, music, and theater student-driven acts. A mixture of innovatively produced happenings, installations, and curated works from artists at Southern Oregon University, the Oregon Fringe Festival breaks boundaries and takes art out of its traditional venues. The Festival’s student producers are particularly excited to present headlining performances this weekend by special guest artists Mark Applebaum and James Donlon.

Key Fringe events are listed below – for a full schedule of Fringe events, please see www.oregonfringefestival.org. All events are FREE and open to the public.

Mark Applebaum and James DelPrince: Concerto for Florist
Friday, May 5, 6:00 PM, SOU Music Recital Hall
Saturday, May 6, 3:00 PM, Lithia Park Butler Bandshell

Mark Applebaum’s Concerto for Florist is a daring composition that exemplifies his unconventionality. Featuring floral designer James DelPrince, the piece blends floral design, musical composition, and performance work. Mark Applebaum is an internationally renowned musician and composer whose solo, chamber, choral, orchestral, operatic, and electroacoustic work has been performed throughout the United States, Europe, Africa, and Asia. www.markapplebaum.com.

James Donlon: Monsters
Friday, May 5, 10:30 PM, SOU Music Recital Hall
Saturday, May 6, 10:00 PM, SOU Music Recital Hall

James Donlon presents a devised theater piece, entitled Monsters, that changes in each manifestation. Donlon has partnered with students from the SOU Theater, Music, and Visual Arts Departments to bring this provocative work to the Oregon Fringe Festival.  James Donlon has been a celebrated master teacher, international performer, and director since 1970. The New York Times describes his work as “an extraordinary blend of skill and lunacy!” jamesdonlon.com

Visual Arts Exhibitions

Opening Receptions – Coinciding with First Friday Trolley: Friday, May 5th, 5-8pm

Exhibition Dates: May 5 – 28, 2017

Stevenson Union Gallery

figure.ground, David Bithell, Solo Exhibition

Center for the Visual Arts Galleries

Dancing with Alchemy, Mara Reinhardt, Solo Exhibition

Imagined: 30 Years of Performance Mask, James Jesse Peck, Solo Exhibition

Works by Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Solo Exhibition

[i s h], Samuel Lindley, Solo Exhibition

Revelation, Charlie Howarth, Solo Exhibition

 

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Season Finale of the Tutunov Piano Series

 

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.

 

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OCA Presents the Cascade Clarinet Consort and the Siskiyou Saxophone Orchestra

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.

 

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First Friday Fun with Oregon Fringe Festival and More

This upcoming First Friday, May 5, ride the Allaboard Trolley to visit downtown galleries and the art happenings at Southern Oregon University. Exhibitions can be viewed in the Schneider Museum of Art, the Center for the Visual Arts (CVA) Galleries, and the Fine Art students’ Private Open Studios until 8:00 PM.

University parking behind the Museum will be made available to the public starting at 4:00 PM. The Allaboard Trolley will shuttle patrons to and from the Museum to the downtown Ashland area between 5:00 PM and 10:00 PM – a generous amount of time to visit the Museum, the student studios and Center for the Visual Arts (CVA) Galleries, and then visit your favorite Ashland galleries, studios, restaurants and more. There will be three stops on the Trolley route, the Schneider Museum of Art, A Street between 5th and 6th Streets, and the Plaza by the Fountains. Museum hours will be extended until 8:00 PM.

On view at the Schneider Museum of Art is Convergence: Digital Media and Technology. The show is co-curated by Richard Herskowitz and Museum Director Scott Malbaurn in collaboration with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art (JSMA) and the Ashland Independent Film Festival (AIFF). It includes work by video, film, and installation artists with world-renowned reputations:

  • Allison Cekala
  • Derek G. Larson
  • Nina Katchadourian
  • Ken Matsubara
  • Julia Oldham
  • Vanessa Renwick
  • Peter Sarkisian
  • Lou Watson

Adjacent to the Museum, join the CVA Galleries to celebrate a collection of exhibitions for the 2017 Oregon Fringe Festival! The Festival welcomes bold work from courageous young creators. A mixture of innovative produced happenings and installations and curated works from artists at Southern Oregon University, the Oregon Fringe Festival breaks boundaries and takes art out of its traditional venues. The following shows will be on view:

  • Dancing with Alchemy, Mara Reinhardt, Solo Exhibition
  •   Imagined: 30 Years of Performance Mask, James Jesse Peck, Solo Exhibition
  •  Works by Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Ka’ila Farrell-Smith, Solo Exhibition
  •  [i s h], Samuel Lindley, Solo Exhibition
  •  Revelation, Charlie Howarth, Solo Exhibition

The Schneider Museum of Art thanks the following sponsors for supporting the trolley service for First Friday: Brickroom, Gallerie Karon, Hanson Howard Gallery, and Standing Stone.

For more information, please contact the Museum at 541-552-6245 or visit the website at sma.sou.edu. For information about the Center for the Visual Arts galleries, please contact cvagalleries@sou.edu or visit Facebook.com/CvaGalleries.

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OCA Theatre Program Presents Summer People

The Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University Theatre program proudly presents Maxim Gorky’s depiction of turn of the century Russia, Summer People. This homage to Anton Chekov, runs May 11-14, 2017 at Southern Oregon University’s Stevenson Union Arena.

Something of a de facto sequel to Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Summer People depicts the ordeals and aspirations of Russia’s new middle class, represented by several families vacationing in their summer homes. They play chess, meet for picnics, and entangle themselves in perilous romances, all while facing the unmistakable specter of change—a change some fear, some welcome, and none can avoid.

Summer People is written by Maxim Gorky, and the translation of the play is by Nicholas Sanders and Frank Dwyer. According to dramaturg Tamar Peterson, “Maxim Gorky (1868-1936), a Russian and Soviet writer, born under the name Alexei Maximovich Peshkov, got his start writing as a journalist, favoring the alias, “Gorky,” which means “the bitter one.” Gorky’s career breakthrough came when he published his first book, Essays and Stories, in 1898. He believed that literature should be a form of political commentary and protest. His best-known work, The Lower Depths, which debuted at the Moscow Art Theatre in 1902, depicts the plight of down-and-out Russians living in a shelter near the Volga River.”

Summer People is directed by James Edmondson, a long-time resident director and actor with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. “We are particularly excited about the production of Summer People because it showcases the outstanding depth and skills of our student performers. It has been a rewarding experience to work with actors who demonstrate such dedication and discipline,” states Edmonson.

Performances take place Thursday-Saturday, May 11 through 13 at 8 PM; Saturday-Sunday, May 13 through 14 at 2 PM at the Stevenson Union Arena on the Southern University Campus at University Way. Tickets are: $21 regular, $18 senior, $6 student, general admission.

Tickets 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. Remaining tickets will be on sale one hour prior to performances at the entrance to the Stevenson Union Arena. 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.

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ShakespeareAMERICA presents “The Woman’s Part in Shakespeare”

Shakespeare America will present a special event entitled, “The Woman’s Part in Shakespeare” at Southern Oregon University on Saturday, April 22 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the Meese Room in Hannon Library. The event will include a performance by Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) actress Robin Goodrin Nordli of her acclaimed one-woman show, “Virgins to Villains: My Journey with Shakespeare’s Women,” as well as a panel discussion featuring Lisa Wolpe, director of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company. There is no admission charge.

According to David McCandless, Director of Shakespeare’s Studies at SOU and organizer of the event, “The Woman’s Part in Shakespeare” will address the challenges of being a female performer of Shakespeare’s plays. “Robin’s show addresses that topic in a uniquely personal way,” he explains, “and the panelists will also consider how being a woman in 2017 shapes their approach to characters created over 400 years ago—especially those women considered shrewish or villainous.” Additionally, the panel will discuss “the rewards and risks of women taking on male roles.” Wolpe is a specialist in cross-gender performance who, according to American Theatre magazine, has played more Shakespearean male roles than any woman in history.

Joining Wolpe on the panel are OSF actress Christiana Clark, who has played both male and female Shakespearean characters, including Proteus in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, and Dawn Monique Williams, OSF Artistic Associate whose upcoming production of The Merry Wives of Windsor will feature many women in male roles, including that of Falstaff. Professor Pamela Brown, a Shakespeare scholar from the University of Connecticut, will kick off the event with a brief lecture on Shakespearean actresses from a historical perspective, entitled “For what’s a play without a woman in it?”

The public is welcome to attend “The Woman’s Part in Shakespeare” on Saturday, April 22 from 1:00 to 4:00 PM in the Meese Room in Hannon Library at Southern Oregon University. This event is free of charge with no RSVP required. For more information, please contact Helen Eckard at 541-552-6346 or at eckardh@sou.edu.

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5 Picks for Live Entertainment in the Valley

Mail Tribune – Posted December 2, 2016

SOU Chamber and Concert Choirs

The Southern Oregon University choirs, directed by Paul French, will present “Ancient Nova,” a program of secular and sacred holiday music, at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 4, in the Music Recital Hall, 405 S. Mountain Ave., on the SOU campus in Ashland. Look for music by American composers Erik Whitacre and Alvin Trotman, Korean composer Hyo-Won Woo and arrangements of traditional carols. Tickets are $10, $5 for seniors, and can be purchased online at oca.sou.edu/box-office or by calling 541-552-6348. Students get in free.

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SOU Percussion Ensembles CDs Reviewed in Percussive Notes

Percussive Notes Vol. 54, No. 5 –  Published November 2016

 

Electric Rebel Poetry

Southern Oregon University Percussion Ensembles
Terry Longshore, Director
Self-Released

This recording features the music of Bryan Jeffs, Mark Applebaum, Collin Malloy, Hikaru Sawai, and Jeff Richmond. The performance by the SOUPE is exceptional and musically inspiring. Highlights include Mark Applebaum’s “30” for percussion soloist, quartet, and septet. The piece is every-
thing we have to come expect from this incessantly creative composer. Layered soundscapes and complex rhythms flourish throughout the performance of this fascinating work. Sawai’s “Yume no Wa,” arranged by Collin Malloy, is a delightful work played beautifully by the ensemble. And the last track, “Sex, Drugs, and Poetry” by Richmond is a delightful contemporary jazz piece for percussion ensemble. This is a truly magnificent recording by the Southern Oregon University Percussion Ensembles and Terry Longshore. I highly recommend it.

—Brett William Dietz

 

La Alma Del Ábol

Southern Oregon University Percussion Ensembles
Terry Longshore – Director
Self Released

This is another great recording by SOUPE and Terry Longshore. It features performances of Chris Burton Jácome, Alport Mhlanga, Christopher Deane, Nigel Westlake, Bryan Jeffs, and Peter Garland. The first track, “La Alma del Álma, la Resonancia de una Rama,” is a Flamenco piece with gorgeous guitar playing by the composer, Jácome. The performances of Deane’s “Vespertine Formations” and Westlake’s “Omphalo Centric Lecture” are incredibly musical and precise. “A Maroon Hog’s Rebel Frog” by Jeffs hints at several distinct musical styles including reggae, funk and rock, and Garland’s “Apple Blossom” is delightfully well performed by the ensemble. The Southern Oregon University Percussion Ensembles have produced another solid recording of new music and well-known percussion ensemble standards. Longshore’s musical leadership of this group is phenomenal, and I look forward to more recordings from this group.

—Brett William Dietz

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Artist’s Work Changes After Brain Cancer Diagnosis

Mail Tribune – Posted Nov 21, 2016

When Austin Brayfield was diagnosed with brain cancer, her painting took on new urgency.

The 83-year-old Ashland artist, who started painting at 70 after a career as a psychologist, began turning out anguished, feverish works packed with emotional power.

Learn more about Brayfield’s work on the full article.

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Diving Into the Musica Matrix

Ashland Daily Tidings – Posted Nov 17, 2016

Director and mezzo soprano O’Scannell pairs with lutenist James Bishop-Edwards performing the works of English Renaissance giant John Dowland’s songbook. He was a pioneer in writing highly personal and moving lyrics for his music, says O’Scannell. The show is entitled “Come Again: John Dowland First Book of Songs.”

Learn more about ‘Come Again’ on the full article.