Tag Archives: UA Little Rock Music

Arkansas Jazz Festival at Clinton Presidential Center Friday & Saturday

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jazzheroThe Clinton Presidential Center celebrates Jazz Appreciation Month with the Arkansas Jazz Festival, featuring “Blue” Lou Marini. Held in partnership with the Arkansas Jazz Educators and the University of Arkansas at Monticello, this FREE, two-day festival will be held at the Clinton Center Park and will showcase the talent of jazz bands from around the state.

Featured artist, Lou Marini, has been a member of Blood, Sweat and Tears, The Saturday Night Live Band, and the Blues Brothers Band. He is an original member of the Blues Brothers Band, since the first appearances on Saturday Night Live, and appeared in both movies, as well as all recordings and tours.

Arkansas Jazz Festival
April 24 – 25, 2015
Clinton Presidential Center Park

Schedule of Performances:

Friday, April 24
3:30 p.m. Central High School Jazz II
4:30 p.m. West Memphis High School
5:30 p.m. Benton Junior High School
6:30 p.m. Harding University
7:30 p.m. Bryant High School

Saturday, April 25
9:00 a.m.  Central High School Jazz II
10:00 a.m. University of Arkansas at Little Rock
11:00 a.m. El Dorado High School
12:00 p.m. Arkansas Tech University
1:00 p.m.  Jonesboro High School
2:00 p.m.  Texarkana, Texas 8th Grade
3:00 p.m.  University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff
4:00 p.m.  Pea Ridge High School
5:00 p.m.  Texas High School
6:00 p.m.  University of Arkansas at Monticello, Featuring Lou Marini

Piano recital this afternoon by UALR Music Professor Dr. Linda Holzer

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Piano recitalDr. Linda Holzer, professor of music at UALR, will hold​ a piano recital at 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in UALR’s Fine Arts Building.

Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, contact the UALR Department of Music at 501.569.3264​

The music will present something for everyone, from the jazz stylings of Bill Evans piano solo “Peace Piece” to a poetic masterpiece, “Sonata Op. 109,” by Beethoven​,​ to three selections by award-winning U.S. composers.

For one the three selections, Dr. Holzer will perform “Love Twitters” by Augusta Read Thomas.

She will be joined by Arkansas Symphony Orchestra’s English horn player, Beth Wheeler, for John Steinmetz’s Suite from an “Imaginary Opera.” The program will conclude with Lowell Liebermann’s “Sonata for Flute and Piano,” featuring guest artist Diane McVinney of the ASO.

An active soloist and chamber musician, Holzer has delivered performances in 29 states, including the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in New York, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, and New York Public Radio Station WNYC-FM.

She has performed at Qingdao University in mainland China, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the Palffy Palace in Bratislava, Slovakia. An advocate for contemporary music, Holzer has participated in numerous premieres, and her concert recordings have been broadcast internationally.

She has served as chair of the Committee on the Pedagogy Student for the 2007 and 2009 National Conference on Keyboard Pedagogy in Chicago and is an active member of the Network of Music Career Development Officers.

She is a founding member of the duo Mariposa with violinist Sandra McDonald, assistant concertmaster of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. Holzer was also named College Teacher of the Year by the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association in 2001.

Holzer is a native of Chicago and holds degrees in piano performance from Northwestern University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Florida State University.

LR Cultural Touchstone: Stella Boyle Smith

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stellaStella Boyle Smith, who died at the age of 100 in 1994, was well known for her love of music and philanthropy. The Stella Boyle Smith Trust, a trust with a longtime history of supporting the arts and music at the University of Arkansas, has made a $200,000 gift to fund student scholarships.

Stella Boyle Smith was a Little Rock philanthropist and founder of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. She lived to be 100, but ensured that her legacy would continue.  In her lifetime, she donated more than $2.5 million to organizations in the music and medical fields.  Since her death, the Stella Boyle Smith Trust has donated more than $5 million.

She was born in Farmington, Mo., into a large, musically inclined family, which moved to Arkansas when she was two. She began singing at the age of three and graduated from high school at 14. In 1922, she moved to Little Rock with her first husband, Dandridge Perry Compton, who died in 1935. Her second husband, George Smith, held various business interests and extensive farms in Woodruff and Arkansas counties, which allowed them to engage in philanthropy. Mr. Smith died in 1946.

In 1923, Smith’s love for music inspired her to start The Musical Group in her living room of her residence at 102 Ridgeway Drive in Little Rock, where she lived until she died. Through several iterations, the group eventually became the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra in 1966. Her initial objective was to establish the symphony as an educational tool for children, and, in 1968, she helped establish the Youth Orchestra. In 1972, the symphony board of directors named her an honorary life member. Smith established a trust fund for the symphony’s permanent endowment in 1985. A loyal friend of music and the symphony, she attended nearly every performance and most rehearsals.

Smith was also a pianist. In 1988, she gave UALR a grand piano as well as an endowed trust of $500,000. UALR renamed its concert hall the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall as a tribute to her. That year the university also gave her an honorary doctor of humane letters degree. Interest from the trust provides scholarships each year for music students studying string instruments, piano or voice.

Smith enabled many students around the state to attend college through the more than 200 scholarships that she financed.

Other organizations that have benefited from her generosity include Arkansas Arts Center and Historic Arkansas Museum as well as the University of Arkansas.

LR Cultural Touchstone: Deborah Baldwin

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9 Deborah BaldwinAs a historian, arts patron, and administrator, Deborah Baldwin has had a hand in shaping Little Rock’s cultural scene for nearly thirty years.   As Chair of the UALR History Department from 1986 to 1992, she lead the department as it created the History Institute which sponsors the “Evenings with History” lecture series.  At the time it was started, it was one of the few lecture series in Little Rock (if not the only one).

A member of the UALR faculty since 1980, Baldwin is a specialist in modern Mexican history with a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. She has published a book on the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and a variety of articles, primarily on Mexican social history topic.

As a History Department faculty member, she has lead the Public History seminar. This program has documented the history of several Little Rock cultural institutions over the years including the Arkansas Arts Center, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra and Museum of Discovery.  The Public History program has trained many of the museum professionals working in Little Rock today.  The Central High Museum, a private forerunner of the National Park Service Central High National Historic Site Visitor Center, was lead in a large part by persons associated with the UALR Public History Program.

Starting in the mid-1990s, Baldwin led the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.  In that capacity, she oversaw the visual and performing arts programming at UALR.  Under her leadership, the Departments of Art, Music, and Theatre & Dance were all revitalized.  As a part of this, she ensured that cutting-edge technology was being integrated to arts curriculum.  She also led efforts to upgrade the performance facilities.  During her tenure as Dean, the College also played leading roles in the commemoration of the 40th and 50th anniversaries of the integration of Central High School, the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, and the “Life Interrupted” exhibit which highlighted the Japanese-American internment experience in Arkansas.  She also oversaw the creation of Finale!, an event each spring which celebrates the arts in Little Rock and honors arts patrons.

With the creation of the Arkansas Studies Institute (a collaboration between UALR and Central Arkansas Library System), Baldwin took on additional duties as UALR’s supervisor on the project.

In 2014, UALR underwent a campus-wide administrative and academic reorganization.  In conjunction with that, Baldwin became Associate Provost for UALR Collections and Archives.  In that capacity she oversees the campus library system, Center for Arkansas History and Culture and the Sequoyah National Research Center.  She continues to teach in the Department of History.

She is a past member of the board of the Arkansas Humanities Council and the MacArthur Military History Museum Commission.

 

DennyWest Music Festival at Wildwood Today

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Wildwood-Park-for-the-Arts-e1352227810968What do Ukulele Bill, REAL Entertaining, Mister Morphis One Man Band, the Hartley Family Bluegrass Band, Posey Hill, the Mulligan Brothers, and BettySoo all have in common? On Saturday, October 5, they’re all playing an outdoor concert at Wildwood Park for the Arts, 20919 Denny Road in West Little Rock. DennyWest, Wildwood’s one-day outdoor Americana acoustic music festival, features children and family entertainment from 1 to 5 pm. At 6:30 pm, Mister Morphis One Man Band & Reed Balentine, Voice of the Wind, lead off the evening’s entertainment, followed by Posey Hill and the Mulligan Brothers. Austin’s BettySoo and Canadian Doug Cox finish the evening with a duo concert from their “Across the Borderline” album.

Gates open for lunch and free hayrides around the lake at noon. Tickets for the afternoon events are $10 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under, and free for kids 5 and under. Evening tickets, starting at 5 pm, are $20 for adults, $10 for teens, $5 for children 12 and under.

BettySoo and Doug Cox conducted a free songwriting workshop at UALR on Friday afternoon. The UALR Department of Music co-hosted the workshop. BettySoo’s appearance and the songwriting workshop are sponsored in part by Mid-America Arts Alliance (MAAA.org), a regional arts organization that supports the arts and touring in Arkansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas. All the daytime artists, as well as Posey Hill, are supported by the Arkansas Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Arkansas Heritage. Bylites is providing sound and lighting for the concerts.

Event Schedule
11 am – Park Gates Open for lunch

1 – 5 pm – Children’s & Family Concert featuring
Ukelele Bill
REAL Entertaining
Mister Morphis One Man Band
Hartley Family Bluegrass Band

6:30 – 10 pm – Evening Concert featuring
Mister Morphis and Reed Balentine: Voice of the Wind
Posey Hill
The Mulligan Brothers
BettySoo and Doug Cox: Across the Borderline

UALR Jazz Ensemble Tonight

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The sounds of jazz will emanate from the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall tonight when the UALR Jazz Ensemble presents a concert.

The program will include arrangements of “Anything Goes” by Cole Porter; “April in Paris” by Vernon Duke; “Ko-Ko,” “In a Mellow Tone”and “Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me” by Duke Ellington; and “Wherever You Go” by Pat Metheny.

The ensemble features student musicians on saxophones, trombones, trumpets, and rhythm section. Michael Underwood is the director. Admission is free. Call (501) 569-3924 or e-mail mpunderwood@ualr.edu.

Double Bill Opera at UALR Tonight and Sunday

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The UALR Opera Theatre will present a double-bill performance of “The Telephone” and “The Medium,” both by Gian Carlo Menotti, at 7:30 p.m., Friday, May 3, and again at 3 p.m., Sunday, May 5, in the Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall in the UALR Fine Arts Building.

Opeara at UALRBoth performances will feature the talents of students in the vocal arts program and will be performed in English, the language in which they were written.  These operas premiered on Broadway in the 1940s as a double-bill and have been presented together and separately by opera  Carcompanies and theatre troupes since then.

UALR students can receive one free ticket; all other student tickets are $5. These tickets may be reserved by calling 501.569-3295.

For general admission, tickets are $15 and can be purchased through the music box office at 501.569.8993.

“The Telephone”
“The Telephone” is a romantic comic opera in one act about a suitor on a mission.

According to Don Bernardini, professor of music and director of the vocal program, “Ben, bearing a gift, comes to visit Lucy at her apartment. He wants to propose to her before he leaves on a trip. Despite his attempts to get her attention for sufficient time to ask his question, Lucy is occupied with interminable conversations on the telephone, but Ben will not be deterred!”

 

“The Medium”
“The Medium” is a two-act dramatic opera. Would-be psychic, Baba, with her daughter, Monica, pose as ghosts from the beyond during séances.

They take in a person who is deaf and doesn’t speak as a lodger but become distrustful of him. During one session, Baba feels a mysterious cold hand around her throat which panics her into revealing to her clients that she is a fake. When they refuse to believe her, Baba’s terror leads to tragedy.