Spring '18 Highlights: Navy Band, Charlie Brown Musical
Tickets are on sale for Sonoma State University’s Department of Music spring 2018 season that consists of more than 30 student, faculty and visiting artist performances at the Green Music Center, and ten showings of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” at Evert B. Person Theatre.
Ticket prices are $8 for music concerts and $10-17 for the musical. All events are free to SSU students. Some performances are free, but ticket is required.
BANDS
United States Navy Band
February 21, 7:30 p.m. Weill Hall
The United States Navy Concert Band will give a free concert in Weill Hall, its only stop in the Bay Area on a 24-day, 21-concert national tour. The premier wind ensemble of the U.S. Navy, the Concert Band will play marches, patriotic selections, orchestral transcriptions and modern wind ensemble repertoire. The Navy Band, recognized as one of the finest wind ensembles in the world, is based in Washington, D.C, has been touring the country since 1925. Free admission, ticket required.
Band Season Highlights
- 6th Annual Invitational Wind Band and Orchestra Festival March 7–9, Weill Hall (unticketed, daily parking fee in effect)
- CBDNA Western/Northwestern Division Conference March 21–24, Weill Hall (unticketed, daily parking fee in effect)
- The Commanders Jazz Ensemble from the USAF Band of the Golden West May 11, 7:30 p.m. Weill Hall. Originally featured during last October’s Jazz Week and then cancelled due to the fires, The Commanders Jazz Ensemble from Travis Air Base will appear on this spring jazz concert playing music for Big Band and more. SSU’s Jazz Orchestra opens the show.l Free admission, ticket required.
- Symphonic Wind Ensemble, Eric Cabalo guitar soloist, May 12, 7:30 p.m. Weill Hall
CHORAL & MUSIC THEATRE
You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown
February 1-11, Evert B. Person Theatre
The music and theatre departments team up to present the newest version of this timeless musical about the Peanuts gang. Two new songs by Andrew Lippa have been added (“Beethoven Day,” “My New Philosophy”) to the twelve original numbers, which include “My Blanket and Me,” “The Baseball Game,” “Little Known Facts,” “Suppertime,” and “Happiness.”
Alexander Nevsky
April 7-9, Weill Hall
The Sonoma State Symphonic Chorus (Jenny Bent, director) will join the Santa Rosa Symphony – Bruno Ferrandis, conductor and Jacalyn Kreitzer, mezzo-soprano – on April 7-9 for Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, the cantata based on the epic 1938 film of the same title by Sergei Eisenstein.
Choral Outreach Concert
April 18, 7:30 p.m. Weill Hall
A choral and educational outreach concert of grand proportions hosted by the SSU Symphonic and Concert Choirs will feature choirs from San Jose State (Jeffrey Benson, director), Santa Rosa Junior College (Jody Benecke, director), Montgomery High School (Dana Alexander, director), and Redwood High School (Susie Martone, director).
ORCHESTRA
Let’s Go To The Movies!
March 4, 2 p.m. Weill Hall
The Sonoma State Symphony Orchestra presents its annual Family Concert, “Let’s Go To The Movies!” with music from films including How To Train Your Dragon, The Sea Hawk, Star Wars and others. Families with children of all ages are welcome and invited to come in costume.
Avec L'Orgue
April 29, 2 p.m. Weill Hall
The Orchestra performs again with organ soloist Jonathan Dimmock playing works by Poulenc and Saint-Saëns. The concert features an afternoon of French music, including a the Concerto for Organ and Strings by Francis Poulenc and Camille Saint-Saëns’ towering Symphony No. 3, “Organ.” Paul Dukas’ brass fanfare from La Peri opens the program.
CHAMBER MUSIC
Navarro Trio
February 18, 2 p.m. Schroeder Hall
Violist Wayne Roden joins Chamber Artists-in-Residence Navarro Trio on February 18 for Piano Quartets (violin, viola, cello and piano) by Mozart and Taneyev. Roden, who teaches viola at Sonoma State, can be heard as a string soloist on the San Francisco Symphony’s recording of Strauss’ Metamorphoses, Herbert Blomstedt conducting.
The Navarro Trio performs again on April 8 at 2 p.m. in Schroeder Hall.
Grisha Goryachev, guitar
April 14, 7:30 p.m. Schroeder Hall
A native of St. Petersburg, Russia, Grisha Goryachev is renowned for his extraordinary musical sensitivity and technical virtuosity in both classical and flamenco styles. He is reviving the tradition of solo flamenco guitar in a concert setting that was practiced by the legendary flamenco masters Ramón Montoya and Sabicas. Goryachev will be playing flamenco compositions by modern and traditional maestros, each with different colors of beauty, intensity, stretching the guitar to express all of its capable emotions.
Goryachev will give a free public workshop on Classical and Flamenco Technique prior to the concert.
NEW MUSIC
Sonoma Musica Viva: The Music of Charles Ives
March 2. 7:30 p.m. Schroeder Hall
American composer Charles Ives (1874-1954) has been called a rare blend of the cultivated and the vernacular. Witness, for example, the middle movement of his Piano Trio, entitled TSIAJ (or This Scherzo Is A Joke). Performed by members of the woodwind, brass, strings and piano faculty under the direction of Brian S. Wilson, the all-Ives concert will include Piano Trio; The Unanswered Question; Three Quarter Tone Pieces; From The Steeples and The Mountains; Selections from 114 Songs; and Variations on “America.”
Pulsoptional
April 6, 7:30 p.m. Schroeder Hall
A composer residency from April 4–7 features Pulsoptional, the "band of composers" co-founded by composition professor Thomas Limbert. Pulsoptional attracts listeners new to contemporary music with its boundary- and genre-defying, high-energy concerts. Personnel include Thom Limbert, percussion; Marc Faris, electric guitar; John Mayrose, guitars and electric bass; Carrie Shull, oboe/English horn; Todd Hershberger, bassoon/alto saxophone; Sidney Boquiren, piano. The concert is ticketed, while other activities are free of charge.
- April 4 – Composer’s Forum, 1:00 p.m., GMC 2052
- April 6 – Concert, 7:30 p.m., Schroeder Hall
- April 7 – Student composition readings, 8:30-11 a.m., Schroeder Hall
JAZZ FORUM
Every Wednesday at 1 p.m. in GMC 1029 the public is invited to attend Jazz Forum, a performance//master class for students majoring in Jazz and featuring professional acts. Upcoming artists include vocalist Danielle Wertz (1/31); guitarist John Stowell and saxophonist Mike Zilber (2/7); Brazilian guitarist Ricardo Peixoto (2/21); pianist David Berkman (4/11); and Eighth Blackbird (4/18). Seating is limited.
The jazz program’s flagship ensemble, the SSU Jazz Orchestra performs on March 14 and May 11 with featured guests, The Commanders Jazz Ensemble from the USAF Band of the Golden West at 7:30 p.m. in Weill Hall.
The Music department is located at the Green Music Center, ranked No. 3 on College Degree Search's 25 Most Amazing Campus Arts Centers, with concert venues in Weill Hall and Schroeder Hall. The GMC is two miles east of Highway 101 on Rohnert Park Expressway. For information call (707) 664-2324.