BCCM WEEKLY KUDOS ... Little did we know that when Jazz Studies was contacted by a Hollywood casting agency in the summer of 2013 to hire extras for a feature film about college jazz bands, that Whiplash would go on to be nominated for an Oscar as Best Picture. Drew Ninmer, Jason Fabus, Taylor Smith, Patrick Lenertz, and Gary Soland appeared and are credited as members of the conservatory jazz orchestra in the film, which focuses on a drummer in as he struggles to impress a merciless teacher. Whiplash received a total of five Oscar nominations; J.K. Simmons, who won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of the teacher, is nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Senior Marci Gross has been promoted to Assistant Band Director at Edison High School and will also work at Sowers Middle School. Beth Peregrine and alumna Ilana Summers were featured soloists in a performance of Debussys The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. The audience processed with the performers throughout the Cathedral. Anthoni Polcari will tour Italy in May as principal cellist of the Classical Concert Chamber Orchestra. The Chamber Choir, directed by Dr. Jonathan Talberg, recorded music for a new multi sensory installation, A Better Nectar by Jessica Rath, based on the co-evolutionary communication between flowering plants and their pollinators. The exhibit is open January 27 - April 12, 2015. “Resonant Nest,” is a responsive acoustic sculpture taking the form of a human-scaled bumblebee nest. Human voice interpretations of bee communication emanate from the sculpture. The music shifts with live changes in weather, season, and time, as well as to the viewer’s presence in the gallery. Dr. John Barcellona was featured in the Long Beach Press Telegram on January 12th in a story about how he has run 70 marathons to raise scholarship money for woodwind students. Dr. Alan Shockley presented his paper “The ‘eternal reality’ of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune in the works of Anthony Burgess” at the Fifth International Conference on Anthony Burgess at the Université d’Angers in Angers, France last December. Dr. Raymond Torres-Santos made the string arrangements and conducted for the new CD by trumpeter Luis Aquino, which was recorded in London by the London Session Orchestra. Christine Guter and John Proulx are both featured artists / clinicians at the 9th annual Oceanside Jazz Festival in April. PST will perform on Friday, April 4. Adjunct bass teacher Tom Peters will perform his new score to John Fords Western classic The Iron Horse at The Autry National Center in Los Angeles on March 26 at 7:00pm. The Big Brown Music Machine Alumni Band performed their annual show at the CSULB basketball game vs UCSB. The Big Brown Music Machine was CSULBs marching band. Former Associate Band Director Gordon Norman was guest conductor. The band performed in the 1977 Rose Parade and at the 1980 Edinburgh Tattoo Festival.https://youtube/watch?v=NAp4PLNKXfw The Big Brown Music Machine came to an end in 1990 when funding cuts led to disbanding the Long Beach State football program. The Southern California Brass Consortium opened the 55th annual Holiday Celebration at the LA Music Center on 12/24. The event was televised locally. The ensemble is run by two of our alumni, Lee Coduti and Hector Salazar. The roster is about 90% CSULB alumni. Graeme Langager (MM Choral Conducting,1996) prepared the Phoenix Chamber Choir for a performance of Arvo Pärt’s Berliner Mass with the Vancouver Symphony and Maestro Bramwell Tovey. Dr. Langager also serves as Director of Choral Activities at the University of British Columbia; he commutes between Vancouver and Phoenix. It is his arrangement of “Irish Blessing” that the Chamber Choir sings to end every choral concert. Alumnus Christopher Rountree, Founder and Director of WildUp, has been signed by Opus 3 Artists. opus3artists/news/?id=5226 Alumnus Josh Nelson, jazz piano, performed in a quartet with Joe Chambers, house drummer the for the iconic Blue Note record label, o nthe long-running KSDS concert series Jazz Live in San Diego. Alumnus Ryan Luevano will be teaching Music and Film at Woodbury University this semester. Stacy Oh, MM Choral Conducting, 2014, received the Jane Skinner Hardester scholarship from the American Choral Directors Association to cover travel, room, board, and registration for the ACDA Conference in Salt Lake City in February. One of two recipients of the award—given to public school teachers in their first seven years of teaching—Stacy is a middle school teacher at Prairie Vista in Torrance. Alumnus Adam Gubman will be on a panel entitled, Landing Your First Game & Building a Career! at the GDC (Game Developers Conference). Alumnus Sam Grodin was selected to give a presentation at MTNAs Fourth Annual Collegiate Piano Pedagogy Symposium. It is a national conference held at SMU in Dallas. His topic is teaching students to engage audiences. Alumnus Ryan Murray (MM flute) Is now coaching at Hughes middle school, and will be coaching groups for Community Chamber Music in Manhatten Beach. The First Congregational Church of Los Angeles commissioned alumnusm Steven Blum for two choral works which were premiered last weekend. The works were for a series called The Art of a New Year which last week focused on jazz. Alumnus Ryan Brown, founder of the San Francisco-based Switchboard Festival accepted the ASCAP-Chamber Music America award for adventurous programming at the Chamber Music America Conference in New York this past weekend. He also served as a panel member for the session on community building.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 17:51:46 +0000
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