Classical Music Discoveries

Mckay Tebbs and the Master Singers are featured performers at the Orchestra of Southern Utah Fall Recital Songs for Voices and Instruments. Also featured is composer Geoffrey Gordon.
Tebbs has been called “a top-notch guitar player” by The Independent Newspaper music critic Kyle England. “[He] can easily call himself a guitar virtuoso,” England added. When Tebbs was still in high school, his life was changed forever. He made a trip to Las Vegas where he discovered the music of Steve Vai and realized that he needed to practice more. His serious study of the guitar eventually led him to Berklee College of Music where he graduated with a degree in professional music. These different experiences have influenced Mckay's music to sound like what 20th Century Guitar described as "Adventurous smooth jazz." His music is characterized by instrumental rock guitar melodies played over jazz chord progressions. Tebbs described it as, “kind of like Carlos Santana going out to lunch with Kenny G.”
After graduation, Tebbs was hired by Southern Utah University to teach guitar. In 2007 he recorded his first CD, "The Way." Which music critic England said, "Will certainly bowl over guitar lovers and appreciators everywhere." In support of that CD, Tebbs has played at many different events and festivals all across Utah including: The Highland City Fling, Brian Head Summer Concert Series, The Zion Canyon Arts Concert Series, The St. George Arts Festival, Ancestor Square, the Dixie Center, The Electric Theater, and The Grind. His band was also picked as the opening act for the Oak Ridge Boys concert at the SUU Centrum in Nov. 2007. McKay Tebbs plays “Caprice #24” by Paganini and “Prelude” by Heitor Villa Lobos for the OSU recital.
The Master Singers are performing the Irish Folk Song “O Danny Boy” and the English folk song “Vive la Compagnie.” They are under the direction of James Harrison and accompanied by Roland Williams.
The Southern Utah String Quartet presents “The Rose” by Amanda McBroom and “Unchained Melody” by Alex North. The quartet is comprised of violinists Patty Walser and Suzanne Stewart, violist Sara Penny, and cellist Leah Brown. All are OSU musicians.
“Trio in D minor, Op. 49 No. 1, Molto Allegro ed agitato” is played by the Amor Trio. The trio includes pianist Tracey Bradshaw, violinist Sara Penny, and OSU cellist Brooke MacNaughton. Bradshaw will solo with OSU on November 19th during the Fall Concert.
Tenor Lawrence Johnson and oboist Virginia Stitt perform “Cruelty has a Human Hearth” and “The Piper” by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Both are SUU music professors and have extensive performance experience.
We are also pleased to introduce a Geoffrey Gordon, composer, to our podcast family as we play his extraordinary work for Wind Symphony "Sones sueno del Maya."

Podcast Hostess: Sandy Hedgecock
Sound/Recording: Ken Hedgecock

Photo: Mckay Tebbs, used by permission

Revised 9/24/09

The Orchestra of Southern Utah opens its 2009 Fall Recital Series with an evening of Popular Music.

Youth group Cellomania performs three well-known songs that been arranged for cello quartet by John Reed of the Hampton String Quartet: “Paint it Black” by the Rolling Stones, “Sweet Dreams Are Made of This” by The Eurithmics, and “Happy Together” by The Turtles. The group will also play “Mellow Cellos Tango” by Michael Kibbe, “Baby Elephant Walk” by Henry Mancini from the Paramount Picture Hatari and “The Lord of the Dance” by Ron Hardiman. This final number was arranged for quartet by Larry Moore and then adapted for cello ensemble by Nina Hansen. Cellomania is under the direction of Hansen and includes Dane Stults, Jamie James, Ali Diaz, Ethan Hansen, Heather Leavitt, Emily White, and Emily Smolka. The group performed in Disneyland last spring and is working towards performances in China.

Color Country Winds performs five pieces under the direction of Bonnie Smith Ries. “American Anthem” was written by Gene Scheer and arranged by Michael Brown. John William’s “Theme from Jurassic Park” by John Williams as arranged by Johnnie Vinson will be performed, as will excerpts from “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Freddie Mercury and Queen, arranged by Paul Murtha. Color County Winds will conclude their portion of the recital with the Brown arrangements of “Music for a Darkened Theatre” by Danny Elfman and “The Legend of Zorro” by James Horner. This community band performs for parades, art festivals and other events with administration by Debbie Nollan.

Fred Dunnell sings “Because” by Howard Teschemacher and Guy d’Hardelot and ”Pale Moon” by Jesse G.M. Glick and Frederic Knight Logan. He is accompanied by his daughter Teri Kenney on the piano.

Pianist Sara Rollins presents “Rhapsody” by Brahms. The high school senior is also active in the Canyon View High School choir and her piano teacher is Diane Decker.

“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg honors the 70th anniversary of the Wizard of Oz film with vocalist Christine Reed, accompanied by Jana Dettimanti.

Podcast hostess: Sandy Hedgecock
Recording/Sound: Ken Hedgecock

Photo of "Cellomania" is used by permission.

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http://www.orchestraofsouthernutah.com

A Lavish Outpouring of Talent By Bryce Christensen ““If you have a talent,” said the Irish poet Brendan Francis, “use it in every which way possible. Don't hoard it. Don't dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke.” A quintet of highly talented young musicians were lavishly sharing—not hoarding—their rare talents on the stage of Cedar City’s Heritage Center on the night of April 23rd, as they performed a rich variety of classical music for an appreciative audience. As featured soloists for the Orchestra of Southern Utah’s annual Roy L. Halversen Young Artist Concert, these five musicians—Anna Sun, Aubrey Shirts, Elise, Read, Ben Bradshaw, and Mike Wallace—offered powerful evidence that the vibrant local musical tradition that Roy Halversen did so much to foster during his more than four decades of music teaching and directing is alive and well. Performing first on the program, fourteen-year-old Anna Sun played the third movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto, Op. 25. No. 1 with a poise and deftness astounding in a musician so young. Dancing skillfully over the keys, her fingers produced an irresistible cascade of radiant beauty. Always an inspiring presence, OSU director Xun Sun beamed with quite visible and well-justified pride as he directed the Orchestra in accompanying his gifted daughter. As Sun yielded the orchestra baton to guest conductor Alec Mariana, clarinetist Aubrey Shirts, a junior in music education at SUU, moved into the soloist’s limelight as she played the third movement of Carl Maria von Weber’s Concerto, Op. 74. Ms. Shirts fully captured the restless energy pervading most of this spritely number, yet still handled with perfect grace the short passages of liquid serenity. The spotlight next shifted to vocalist Elise Renee Read, another music major at SUU, who performed “Oh Mio Babbino Caro” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and “Addio Donde Lieta Usci” from Puccini’s La Boheme. Ms. Read’s marvelously resonant soprano voice rendered both numbers with an impassioned fervor, soaring effortlessly into empyreal heights. As the final youth soloists of the evening, bassoonists Ben Bradshaw and Michael Wallace, both music students at SUU, joined their woodwind talents as a duet to play Johan Baptist Wanhal’s Concerto in F Major. Pouring forth a wealth of mellow and elegant harmonies, this duo together plumbed the majestic profundity of their deep-toned instrument. After the intermission, the lavish outpouring of individual talents gave way to an equally lavish torrent of collective talent, as Xun Sun again took up the baton to lead the Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 (1st and 2nd movements with 4th movement coda). To be sure, this evocative number did feature two more memorable solos—a poignantly liquid clarinet solo, again showcasing Ms. Shirt’s exceptional talents, and a plaintive and mournful French horn solo by Pete Akins. But only the full resources of the orchestra could master the daunting challenge of a composition combining a wide range of musical effects. It was not for nothing that critic Harold C. Schonberg regarded Tchiakovsky as "a sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody,” and mining the inexhaustible supersensousness of the Russian composer’s work requires a complete and well-prepared orchestra. Indeed all the orchestra’s resources—the piercing summons of the brass, the stirring cadences of the drums, the hypnotic seductions of the strings, and the fluid sonority of the woodwinds—did come together, sometimes in fusion, sometimes in counterpoint, in the course of this wonderful performance. And what a musical ride the orchestra gave the audience, moving from the grave and somber opening strains into a veritable eruption of instrumental fury, and then subsiding again into brooding suspense! The audience could only marvel at how the same talents that enabled the orchestra musicians to play with courtly and regal dignity one moment could just a few minutes later enable them to overwhelm their listeners with a passage of scalding white heat. By the time the orchestra had played the final regal notes, the audience knew it had experienced something quite rare. And as listeners exited the concert hall, they were acutely and gratefully aware that remarkable musicians had shared their talents with truly lavish generosity. Podcast hostess: Sandy Hedgecock Recording by; Ken Hedgecock Graphics used by permission: Rollan Fell and the Print Shoppe, Cedar City

This week we go back 40 years into Ken's past to explore the large band ensembles he performed in and conducted during high school.

Performed works are:
American Overture for Band
March from "A Little Suite"
Rocky Point Holiday
Irish Tune from County Derry
La Procession du Rocio
Symphonic Movement
Four Scottish Dances
The Southerner March
Batuque
Danzon
Kalinnikov's Symphony #1 (Finale)

You don't want to miss out on this explosive band concert! Plus the finale is a 160 piece wind band conducted by Ken when he was a junior in high school.

Sandy and Ken also go over this week's listener comments
Podcast Hostess: Sandy Hedgecock
Recording/Sound: Ken Hedgecock

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This week we explore the different sounds of classical music from around the world from artists and composers you may not be familiar with. We know you will enjoy this classical romp through the world and maybe you'll have a new understanding of just where classical music is going in today's world.

Sandy and Ken also go over this week's listener comments.

This week's podcast contains music recommended by our listeners!

Yes, this is our "Listener Podcast" where hundreds of our listeners from all over the world sent in music they wanted to hear on our podcast. This week we feature everything from classical to jazz funk.

A very special thanks to our listeners and also to the performers for giving us permission to play their music for millions of people to listen to.

Sandy and Ken also read comments for our previous "International Jazz Podcast."

Don't miss this extraordinary podcast.

Jazz, born in the United States, has emerged in almost every country in the world in one form or another, each country has added its on flavor to it as well, making Jazz its own.

We want to thank all of our musical friends for allowing us to use their music on this podcast. We are proud to present to you Jazz from the following countries: the United States, Nigeria, Spain, Malaysia, the UK, France, Jamaica, Indonesia, Germany, Australia, Italy, Chile, Hungary and Japan. We hope not only to entertain, but to also open a whole new world of International Jazz to you.

It is with great pleasure that we present to you "Jazz from Around the World."

This week we explore the harmonica delights of Robert Bonfiglio and the humorous anecdotes of musician/author Justin Locke of the Boston Pops.

SARA DAVIS BUECHNER is a classical concert pianist whose performances and recordings have garnered acclaim on four continents. Career highlights include winning prizes in many of the world's most prestigious competitions, appearing with prominent orchestras world-wide, and an extensive list of recordings on major CD labels, MP-files, and Yamaha software systems.

HER EXTENSIVE CLASSICAL REPERTOIRE includes over 100 different piano concertos spanning the breadth of keyboard music from Bach to the music of prominent composers of our time. Her affinities range from Mozart (InTune magazine: "the closest thing to a perfect disc of Mozart piano music known") to Chopin to Busoni (a friend of the Busoni family, she studied with several of his important pupils) to Japanese music to Ragtime, Novelty Classics and Gershwin (Deseret News: "the greatest performance of Rhapsody in Blue I have ever heard"). She has composed several suites for piano as well as music for chamber ensemble and voice. And she is also one of the very few concert pianists today who can perform original scores to silent movies, like "Ben Hur" (150 minutes non-stop!) at New York's Lincoln Center.

MS. BUECHNER lives in beautiful Vancouver, Canada, where she is Associate Professor of Piano and Piano Literature at the University of British Columbia. She is in great demand as an adjudicator for important piano competitions and festivals, and presents lectures, workshops and masterclasses worldwide, from the Royal Academy in London to the Juilliard School to the Kobe-Yamate Gakuen in Osaka, Japan.

SARA is a dazzling pianist and witty speaker, with a gregarious personality that leaps from the stage. In informal concerts she will chat delightfully about her cosmopolitan range of interests -- from baseball and classic cartoons, to New York art deco architecture and Japanese kabuki -- to connect with her audience on an intimate level, and make her music a personal and enchanting experience for everyone.

SARA DAVIS BUECHNER in solo recital, as soloist with orchestra, in collaboration with dance or film... will be an evening of musical enchantment long remembered and treasured by audiences wherever she appears.

Following this week's highlight, Sandy and Ken go over this week's listener comments.

As an extra bonus, at the end of the Podcast, we also feature Sara performing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.

Podcast hostess: Sandy Hedgecock
Sound Engineer: Ken Hedgecock
Sara's notes and photos used by permission.

This week, we are proud to highlight composer Ralph Zurmühle.

Ralph Zurmühle was born in Zürich (Switzerland) in 1959 and holds a Science of Law degree from the University of Zürich. At the early age of five Ralph discovered his natural talent for the piano and began private lessons. He studied classical music and jazz until the age of twenty. He later collaborated in several jazz-rock groups in Switzerland and Liechtenstein.

In 1986 he started composing music for film, theater and multimedia. His most recent projects are L'horitzó (Metrònom, Barcelona, and International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Almería, Spain, 2006) and the documentary Norró (National Spanish TV La2, Spain, 2006).

In 1999 Ralph moved to Catalonia (Spain) where he currently resides in a village at the base of Montserrat. He released 3 CDs composed for piano, and performed numerous solo piano concerts throughout Spain. He also collaborated with several musicians, among them Rosa Zaragoza.

Following the podcast Sandy and Ken go over this week's listener comments.

We also feature the Orchestra of Southern Utah performing "The March of the Two Left Feet" by Leroy Anderson.

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