Mike Fansler
has accepted, on behalf of the Symphonic Wind Ensemble, the invitation by the "Circle of Honor" coordinators to perform once again in Orchestra Hall on Saturday, April 4, 2009. As the only college band performing, SWE will be the exhibition ensemble for 6 high school bands from Texas, two of which have previously been selected to perform at the Midwest International Band and Orchestra Clinic. Fansler invites all alums to join SWE in Chicago for this event!
Jenny Perron and John Vana will be performing on two concerts in the next few weeks. On September 23, Perron and Vana are playing Two Fantastics by Jeno Takacs)" for the Music from Vienna: Late Romantics and Early Modernists concert. On October 1, Perron and Vana are playing Sonata by Fernande Decruck for the BCA Concert Women Composers.
Courtney Blankenship, music business instructor, along with co-publisher Tammy La Prad, received a Macomb Quality of Life Award for their publication IParent.
Terry Chasteen's student and recent graduate, Bethany Worrell, was selected the winner of Rockford, Illinois' Mendelssohn Society Singer of Promise competition. She submitted both video and audio recordings of an entire recital program that were reviewed by a panel of judges selected from prestigious vocal music organizations throughout the country. She has been awarded a cash prize and will present a recital sometime this year in Rockford to officially be presented as the recipient. Details of the concert will be made public once the details are worked out.
Dr. Chung-Ha Kim attended the 2008 Group Piano & Piano Pedagogy (GP-3) Conference in Norman, Oklahoma from August 1-2. Her report on the session "Learning to Learn, Teaching to Teach" will appear in the January 2009 issue of Piano Pedagogy Forum, an on-line piano pedagogy magazine. http://www.music.sc.edu/ea/keyboard/PPF/
GP-3 is sponsored by the Music Teachers' National Association (MTNA). Conferences take place every two years, and attract piano pedagogues from across the nation.
Dr. Tammie Walker (piano) and Dr. Andrea Graves (former WIU flute professor) performed at the National Flute Association Convention in Kansas City, MO on August 9, 2008. Walker and Graves performed their newly published arrangement of Largo from Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, as well as their newly published and commissioned Sonatina for Alto Flute and Piano by English composer Alexandra Harwood (daughter of Academy Award winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood The Pianist). Walker and Graves gave the London premiere of Harwood's Sonatina in January, 2005.
Randall Faust's Composition Memoirs And Souvenirs for Solo Horn Octet and Horn Choir was performed at the International Horn Symposium at the University of Denver by the University of Arizona Horn Ensemble accompanied by an all-star Horn Choir including hornists from the University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, Central Washington University, the University of South Carolina, Boston University, International Horn Society Honorary Michael Hatfield, and Western Illinois University's own Roger Collins and Lee Kessinger. This work, originally commissioned by the University of Arizona for a performance in 2007, was also performed by the Western Illinois University Horn Ensemble at the Western Illinois Horn Festival in April.
Western Illinois University and horn professor Randall Faust have been selected to host the 41st International Horn Symposium of the International Horn Society, June 2-7, 2009. This past summer (2008) the Symposium was held at the University of Denver, Colorado. In 2010, the International Horn Symposium will be held in Brisbane, Australia. Preparations are currently underway for hosting featured hornists from around the world for recitals, lectures, and master classes as well as horn manufacturers and music publishers who will be exhibiting at the Symposium. Over 400 hornists are expected to be at Western Illinois University for this spectacular event.
For ongoing information visit the Western Hornist Website: http://www.wiu.edu/horn