Axe ’Em, Jacks!
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Wind Ensemble at Stephen F. Austin State University will perform a concert featuring the music of American composer Michael Daugherty at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 17, in W.M. Turner Auditorium on the SFA campus.
A Grammy Award winner, Daugherty is professor of composition at the University of Michigan.
“He will be at SFA for the concert and to speak to our classes,” said Fred J. Allen, director of bands and the conductor for the Wind Ensemble. “We will perform three of his compositions on this concert.”
Daugherty’s “Dead Elvis” will feature SFA School of Music faculty member Lee Goodhew, assistant professor of bassoon, and other music faculty.
“This piece is written for a group of six performers who accompany the solo bassoon,” Allen said.
Joining Goodhew will be music faculty members Chris Ayer, clarinet; Jennifer Dalmas, violin; Carlos Gaviria, bass; Jacob Walburn, trumpet; Deb Scott, trombone; and Brad Meyer, drums.
“Elvis fans will not want to miss this homage to the King of Rock and Roll,” Allen said.
Daugherty is one of the most commissioned, performed and recorded composers on the American concert music scene today. He has been hailed by London’s The Times as “a master icon maker” with “maverick imagination, fearless structural sense and meticulous ear.”
Daugherty has received numerous awards, distinctions and fellowships for his music, including a Fulbright Fellowship, the Kennedy Center Friedheim Award, the Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, among others.
Daugherty’s “Rio Grande” and “Of War and Peace” are also on the program.
“SFA was part of the commission that produced ‘Of War and Peace,’” Allen said.
The band will also perform the John Philip Sousa march “Boy Scouts of America.”
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.