DANBURY, CONN. — The Western Connecticut State University Department of Music will present a rich diversity of concert and recital offerings featuring jazz, piano, percussion, choral and symphonic band performances by WCSU faculty, students and guest artists during March, April and May, 2015.

All performances will be in the Veronica Hagman Concert Hall of the Visual and Performing Arts Center on the university’s Westside campus, 43 Lake Ave. Extension in Danbury. Reservations and admission fees will be required for the Friday and Saturday concerts during the WCSU Jazz Fest in April. Admission to all other concerts will be free and the public is invited; donations to support the Department of Music will be accepted.

Concert offerings that will be presented this spring include:

• Thursday, March 26, at 8 p.m.: Student musicians will take center stage as the WCSU Jazz Combos perform in concert.

• Wednesday, April 1, at 8 p.m.: Western music students will present a piano studio recital.

• Wednesday, April 8, at 12:30 p.m.: The Transcontinental Piano Duo will perform as guest artists in concert. Since forming the duo in 1992, Elaine Greenfield and Jan Meyer Thompson have collaborated to present workshops, master classes and performances across the United States, earning praise for their musicianship and versatility and for their teaching of piano for four hands and two pianos. Recent performances include an appearance at the Steinway Chamber Music Festival in Arizona and a CD recording of French piano four-hands pieces.

• Monday, April 13, at 8 p.m.: The WCSU Percussion Ensemble will perform in concert under the direction of Professor of Music David Smith. A past Connecticut Higher Education Music Educator of the Year and WCSU faculty member since 1970, Smith is the principal percussionist with the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and has performed with the Paul Whiteman Band in tours across the United States. He has made several recordings with the New England Contemporary Ensemble.

• Wednesday, April 15, at 12:30 p.m.: Violist Hannah Levinson, soprano Patty Goble and baritone Richard Weidlich will join WCSU Professor of Music Dr. Russell Hirshfield, on piano, and Dean of the School of Visual and Performing Arts Dr. Dan Goble, on saxophone, in a recital performance of music composed by Rhian Samuel. Samuel is a prize-winning composer of more than 100 choral, chamber and orchestral works performed worldwide and a veteran music educator who has taught at Oxford University and City University London in England. Levinson has performed the works of leading contemporary composers at many New York and Boston concert venues and with pioneering ensembles including Moto Perpetuo, Mimesis and TACTUS. Hirshfield has performed in recitals across the United States as well as Brazil, Costa Rica and South Africa. Dan Goble’s artistic career spanning more than 30 years has earned international recognition for performance of jazz, classical and contemporary music for saxophone with world-class organizations including the New York Philharmonic, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet, the New York Saxophone Quartet and the Harvey Pittel Saxophone Quartet, as well as at numerous club venues in New York. Patty Goble’s Broadway credits include “Bye Bye Birdie,” “Curtains,” “The Woman in White,” “La Cage aux Folles,” “Kiss Me Kate,” “Ragtime” and “The Phantom of the Opera.” Weidlich is an adjunct instructor of music at WCSU who has appeared in opera, orchestra, chamber ensemble and musical theatre productions across the United States.

• Tuesday, April 21, at 8 pm.: The WCSU Chamber Singers, conducted by Professor of Music Dr. Kevin Jay Isaacs, and the WCSU Concert Choir, conducted by Assistant Professor of Music Dr. Cory Ganschow, will perform in concert. The Chamber Singers’ program will feature Roger Petrich’s variations on “Ah, Holy Jesus,” the first movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Psalm 42, as well as works by Stephen Paulus, Ludwig Lenel and Dolly Parton. The Concert Choir will perform Paul Mealor’s “Ubi Caritas,” Handel’s “O Praise the Mighty Lord,” Jacob Narverud’s “Stone,” and Morten Lauridsen’s “Sure on This Shining Night.” WCSU choral ensembles have performed with the New Haven Symphony, Ridgefield Symphony and other orchestras across the region.

• April 23 through 25: WCSU will continue two decades of bringing great jazz performers to Danbury with the university’s 20th Annual Jazz Fest, featuring concerts at 7 p.m. on April 23, 24 and 25. The opening concert on Thursday, April 23, will feature Western music faculty and select student performers in ensemble sets of jazz classics and original works. Legendary jazz pianist Kenny Barron will be the guest performer with the WCSU Jazz Orchestra in concert on Friday, April 24. The climactic Jazz Fest concert on Saturday, April 25, will feature the Jimmy Heath Big Band, led by the acclaimed jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, bandleader and music educator Jimmy Heath. Admission will be free for the Thursday concert; reservation and ticket information for the Friday and Saturday concerts is available at (203) 837-TIXX and www.wcsu.edu/tickets.

• Sunday, April 26, at 3 p.m.: The WCSU Chamber Percussion Ensemble, conducted by Professor of Music David Smith, and the New Music Ensemble, conducted by Associate Professor of Music Dr. Fernando Jimenez, will feature sets by experienced student performers in the Department of Music.

• Tuesday, April 29, at 8 p.m.: The WCSU Symphonic Band, conducted by Assistant Professor of Music Dr. Timothy Wiggins, will perform selections from Kurt Weill’s “Threepenny Opera” and works by Mendelssohn and Franz Biebl. Fernando Jimenez will join the band to perform a commissioned work, “Concerto for Trombone and Wind Ensemble,” by Dana Wilson, an internationally acclaimed composer whose works have been performed widely in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

• Sunday, May 3, at 2 p.m.: The WCSU Saxophone Orchestra and Saxophone Quartet will present Saxofestivus, performing works by J.S. Bach, Giovanni Gabriel, Leonard Bernstein and Alfred Desencios.

For more information, contact the Office of University Relations at (203) 837-8486. For a complete schedule of other SVPA events, visit www.wcsu.edu/svpa/events.asp.

Western Connecticut State University offers outstanding faculty in a range of quality academic programs. Our diverse university community provides students an enriching and supportive environment that takes advantage of the unique cultural offerings of Western Connecticut and New York.
Our vision: To be an affordable public university with the characteristics
of New England’s best small private universities.