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SFA music education professor to deliver free lecture


NACOGDOCHES, TEXAS - Mark E. Turner, associate professor of elementary music education for Stephen F. Austin State University, will deliver a lecture, "Spoken Language and Its Influence on Musical Compositions: A Review of Research," from 2 to 3 p.m. Friday, Feb. 17, in the Music Recital Hall (Room 160) of the Wright Music Building.

The lecture, which is the fourth of the monthly Robert G. Sidnell Lecture Series in Music Education, will feature research about the connection between language and music, explained Turner.

"Because languages differ in their intonation, their meter and whether they are time-stressed languages or syllable-stressed languages, researchers wanted to determine if these unique differences were evident in music created by French composer Gabriel Fauré, for example, as compared to English composer Ralph Vaughn Williams," said Turner.

The lecture will feature representative music and speech examples from selected countries.

The Sidnell lecture series was established by Turner this year and is named for a former dean of the SFA College of Fine Arts.

Admission is free. The Wright Music Building is located at 2210 Alumni Dr. For more information, please call Turner at (936) 468-4051.