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The PSU Dance Minor, the PSU Percussion Ensemble, the PSU Jazz Ensemble, the PSU Wind Ensemble, the University Choirs, the Southeast Kansas Symphony, and the Four State Honor Band all will perform in concert, and the PSU Dance Minor will present its spring showcase and symposium.
All are free except the symphony concert; tickets for it can be purchased at pittstate.edu/tickets.
Campus and community are invited to attend the annual Dance Symposium Performance and view dance related research by dozens of students in the Dance Minor. Research will be on display by students in interactive booths in the lobby from 5:30 to 7 p.m. The performance will begin at 7 p.m. and will include jazz, hip hop, contemporary, musical theater, jazz, modern, ballet, and cultural dances. Dances have been choreographed by students, faculty, and guest choreographers. The event is coordinated by Elizabeth Smith.
The PSU Percussion Ensemble will perform at 7 p.m. under the direction of Assistant Instructional Professor Michael Giunta. Musicians will play contemporary compositions on a variety of percussive instruments.
Among the pieces will be "Stardust,” a blend of rock, metal, funk, and contemporary classical music that draws influence from the work of Tool, Metallica, and others; and “Blindnesses,” which requires four vibraphonists to perform a delicate choreography as they play that requires each performer to be intimately, meticulously aware of the actions of the other players around them.
Students will have the chance to learn from and perform with a master trumpet player and jazz artist, Allen Vizzutti in a 10 a.m. trumpet master class and a 2 p.m. Q&A session – both of which are open to the public — prior to the 7 p.m. concert.
All events that day are free.
The performance will be directed by Professor Todd Hastings and will feature such tunes as “Come Fly With Me,” “Mac the Knife,” and “A Night in Tunisia.”
Sometimes the best response to darkness is light. In response to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, composer Leonard Bernstein famously wrote:
"This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before."
In much the same spirit, the music on this program grew out of frustration at not having a seat at the table, anger about not being accorded the same basic human rights as others, and despair about losing control of negative self talk; and in a similar but unique reply to the darkness around them, the reply of these composers was to boogie.
This concert will feature songs performed by the PSU Wind Ensemble under the direction of Associate Professor Andrew Chybowski.
The concert will begin at 7 p.m.
This concert, which begins at 7 p.m., will feature an evening of choral music inspired by some of the greatest American poets from the 19th-21st Centuries.
Poets represented in the program span from Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Greenleaf Whittier to Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou. Included among the 15 composers whose music will be performed are Vincent Persichetti, Stephen Paulus, Randall Thompson, and Rollo Dilworth.
The PSU Chorale and University Choir will be under the direction of Professor Susan Marchant.
The Rising Stars concert by the Southeast Kansas Symphony will begin at 3 p.m. and will highlight the remarkable talent of student soloists who won the SEK Symphony's Concerto/Aria competition, offering a platform for emerging artists to shine.
The winners are PSU students Louie Hurtado (saxophone), Alex Ramirez-Perez (clarinet), and Sara Flessner (soprano).
The concert will be directed by Assistant Professor Ramiro Miranda.
The 41st Annual Four State Honor Band will feature some of the best high school wind and percussion students in the region. After rehearsing with clinicians Erik Leung (award-winning director of bands at Oregon State University) and Catharine Sinon Bushman (wind ensemble conductor and assistant professor of music education at St. Cloud State University), the group will perform in concert at 7 p.m.
The festival is directed by Chybowski.
