Axe ’Em, Jacks!
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The Stephen F. Austin State University College of Fine Arts and School of Music will present the Heterodyne Duo in concert at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 29, in Cole Concert Hall in the first recital of the 2016-17 Cole Performing Arts Series.
The Heterodyne Duo features music faculty members Dr. Brad Meyer, director of percussion studies, and Dr. Nathan Nabb, professor of saxophone. They will perform a recital featuring contemporary and ethnic, dance-style music.
Among the works to be performed is "Release" by John Fitz Rogers, who describes the piece as a companion to an earlier one titled "Push." The previous piece, scored for solo electric guitar, consists of "unrelentingly fast lines and repeated notes played at loud volume and with distortion." In "Release," he says he took a similar approach in that there are fast lines as well as repeated notes and chromatic figures articulated by both the saxophone and marimba. Though the form of both works is similar, in "Release," the music is much quieter and gentler.
The duo will also perform Astor Piazzolla's "Histoire du Tango" and Miriam Young's "Snapdragon." "Histoire du Tango" covers the evolution of the dance through the 20th century. Written in four movements, the piece chronicles the tango from its polite café form through its new nightclub dance form, making it into a new form for concert music.
Political in nature, "Snapdragon" was written just after America's initial attack on Iraq and features "music that reflects a sense of anger and helplessness in the face of cruel acts imposed by man or nature," Young said.
"Snow was falling in Princeton, physically trapping me in a tall apartment, while my connection with the outside world - the TV - projected sensational stories and graphic images of a faraway places in turmoil," Young wrote of composing the piece. "There was a gradual sense of becoming numb, as weather and war preyed on a creeping awareness of my incapacity to act in any tangible way. So, the music that emerged has a poignant physicality: it is music rooted in the body - experiential, dynamic and earthy."
Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. For tickets or more information, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit www.finearts.sfasu.edu.