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Former SFA band director to guest conduct


NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS - Dr. Kevin Sedatole, former band director at Stephen F. Austin State University, will return to campus to guest conduct the SFA Wind Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. Friday, March 23, in Cole Concert Hall.

Sedatole is one of five guest conductors who will be leading the Wind Ensemble and Wind Symphony during the concert, which precedes the SFA bands' annual conducting symposium the next day.

Sedatole, who taught at SFA from 1991 to 1996, will be the clinician. He is currently director of bands and chair of the conducting area at Michigan State University.

"The pieces we perform on Friday evening will be used in workshop during the symposium," explained Fred J. Allen, SFA director of bands.

The Wind Symphony will open the concert under the baton of Michael Oreka, graduate student from Chesapeake, Va., leading the band in Ralph Vaughan Williams' "Folk Song Suite" and William Schuman's "Chester." This half of the concert serves as Oreka's graduate conducting recital.

Three graduate students will conduct the first half of the Wind Ensemble's portion of the program. Jay Weems of Stephenville will conduct Felix Mendelssohn's "Overture"; Justin Allen of Spring will conduct the second movement of Percy Grainger's "Lincolnshire Posey," and Michelle King of Henderson, the fifth movement.

Sedatole will then conduct Joel Puckett's "Avelynn's Lullaby," and Allen will close the concert conducting Kenneth Alford's "Army of the Nile March."

Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, please call (936) 468-6407.