By way of celebrating Black History Month, I offer the following excerpts from Frederick Douglass's address of September 3, 1894, given in Manassas, Virginia:
Education…means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light only by which men can be free. To deny education to any people is one of the greatest crimes against human nature. It is to deny them the means of freedom and the rightful pursuit of happiness, and to defeat the very end of their being….Than this, no greater wrong can be inflicted; and, on the other hand, no greater benefit can be bestowed upon a long benighted people than giving to them…the means of useful education.
….
As man is the highest being on earth, it follows that the vocation of teacher is among the highest known….To properly teach is to enduce [human] potential and latent greatness, to discover and develop the noblest, highest and best that is in [one]. In view of this fact, no [one] whose business it is to teach should ever … feel that [the] mission is mean, inferior, or circumscribed. In my estimation, neither politics nor religion present to us a calling higher than this primary business of unfolding and strengthening the powers of the human soul. It is a permanent vocation. Some know the value of education, by having it. I know its value by not having it. It is a want that begins with the beginning of human existence, and continues through all the journey of life ….From first to last, human existence depends upon instruction.
EVENTS For complete listings of performances, including student degree recitals and details about live audio/video stream availability, please see the HSoM Calendar: https://music.appstate.edu/news-events/performance-calendar and http://music.appstate.edu/news-events/live-streams
Concert Band performs Monday, February 20, at 8 pm, in Rosen.
Symphony Band performs Thursday, February 23, at 8 pm, in Rosen.
Faculty Chamber Ensembles perform Tuesday, February 28, at 8 pm, in Rosen.
LOOKING AHEAD
Deans' Student Advisory Council meets Wednesday, March 1, at 5 pm.
The Student Composers Concert occurs Wednesday, March 1, at 8 pm, in Rosen.
Jazz Ensemble II performs Thursday, March 2, at 8 pm, in Rosen.
Saturday, March 4, is our fifth and final audition day for identifying the incoming fall HSoM class. The Hayes Young Artist Competition will be a highlight of the day's activities.
Guest artist percussion ensemble Percuba performs Saturday, March 4, at 8 pm, in Rosen. These artists—colleagues from Havana, Cuba's Instituto Superior de las Artes—will also conduct workshops and master classes throughout their residency March 3-7. See attached flyer.
HSoM faculty saxophonist Scott Kallestad performs Sunday, March 5, at 4 pm, in Rosen.
The annual Women Composers Concert occurs Monday, March 6, at 8 pm, in Rosen.
The Miguel Zenon Jazz Quartet performs Tuesday, March 7, at 8 pm, in the Schaefer Center. $$
March 11-19 is Appalachian's Spring Break. Classes will resume on Monday, March 20.
HSoM ON THE ROAD and AROUND CAMPUS (upcoming)
Mélisse Brunet, HSoM director of orchestral activities, will take part in the event "Warm up with the Humanities: A Celebration of Research by New Faculty", on Friday, February 24, 2017, from 1-4 pm, in Room 421, Belk Library and Commons. Her 3MR presentation, “Behind the Scenes: The Conductor," focusing on the musical role of the conductor applied to the upcoming HSoM opera production, Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.
Eight HSoM students have been invited to present academic papers at the National Council on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) conference, scheduled for April 6-8 in Memphis, TN. HSoM music theorist Jennifer Snodgrass and musicologist Reeves Shulstad serve as mentors for the student scholars:
- Andrew Byrd, AN ANALYSIS OF WAGNERIAN LEITMOTIFS
- Erin Ingram, BENEFITS OF MUSIC EDUCATION: WORTH THE FIGHT?
- Zach Lloyd, MUSIC THEORY PEDAGOGY AND THE BENEFITS AT AN UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL
- Caleb McMahon, CHANGES FOR CHANGE: HOW JAZZ COMPOSER CHARLES MINGUS FOUGHT FOR EQUALITY
- Mandy Mericle, OUT DAMNED SPOT: GENDER, MADNESS, AND VERDI'S LADY MACBETH
- Miranda Penley, INTERACTION OF FASHION, DANCE MOVEMENT, AND DANCE MUSIC IN KING LOUIS XIV'S COURT
- Jackson Van Horn, RADIOHEAD AND THE EVOLUTION OF MUSIC THEORY
- Rachel Whitman, DEFINING MUSIC PERFORMANCE ANXIETY: CAUSES AND COPING STRATEGIES
KUDOS AND OTHER NEWS AND EVENTS
Two HSoM students were prize winners in the North Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Teachers of Singing Student Auditions this past week (Friday, February 17) at UNCG. Mitchell Auger placed 2nd in the Graduate Men category, and Gretchen Struckmeyer place 3rd in the Sophomore Women category.
The Aspen Music Festival and School has hired, for the first time, three HSoM Music Industry Studies students for the Edgar Stanton Audio Recording Center (ESARC). Graham Sloboda (2017) Assistant Engineer, Adam Campbell (2019) Assistant Engineer , and Jordan Bailey (2015) Engineer. The three Recording and Production concentration students will be working on the 2017 season for 10.5 weeks in Aspen, Colorado as part of the 13 member staff for the ESARC team. HSoM sound recording faculty member Scott Wynne will return to Aspen Music for his 8th year, repeating for the third season his role as Chief Recording Engineer with the Edgar Stanton Audio Recording Center.
The Manhattan School of Music recently hired Music Industry Studies (Recording and Production) alumnus Neal Shaw, '15, as one of their full-time recording engineers.
With best wishes for week six of the Spring 2017 semester,
Bill
_____________________
William L. Pelto, Ph.D.
Dean, Hayes School of Music
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
828-262-3029