SOU percussion groups to play in New York

On repeat: prominent NYC music festival features SOU percussion ensembles

Southern Oregon University’s percussion ensembles received a special invitation two years ago to perform at the Bang on a Can “LONG PLAY” music festival – a three-day NYC event each year that draws hundreds of percussive artists from around the world. With instruments nearly packed and ready to go, SOU’s contingency had to wait while the world paused for the pandemic.

The invitation was extended again this year and with renewed fervor, SOU’s percussion faculty – Terry Longshore, Bryan Jeffs and Reed Bentley – will venture to NYC with percussion students and perform during the festival, April 29 through May 1.

SOU will be the only university participating in the May Day festival, and students will share the stage with a cadre of some of the biggest names, composers and musicians, in the world of percussion – an impressive “who’s who” of new music. A total of 11 percussion students, three faculty members and two SOU alumni will participate during the festival, which features 50-plus percussive artists and 60-plus concerts across eight pioneering music venues in Brooklyn. Performances will be held at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Roulette, Public Records, Littlefield, Mark Morris Dance Center, The Center for Fiction, outdoor events at The Plaza at 300 Ashland and more.

Longshore’s longstanding connections with festival producers prompted the recent invitations and opportunities for SOU students. He has been involved in the weekend festival since the early 1990’s and performed twice during his own master’s program. He has also made connections with composers and other percussionists through his own professional music career and has participated in the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival at MASS MoCA.

Bang on a Can was founded in 1987 by lauded contemporary composers Julia Wolfe, David Lang and Michael Gordon. Lang and Wolfe have each been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Gordon is the composer of “Natural History,” which premiered with a 2016 performance at Crater Lake by the Britt Festival Orchestra with Steiger Butte Drum, members of the SOU Percussion Ensemble and various SOU music faculty and students.

“Right now – this minute – is an amazing time to love music,” Wolfe, Lang and Gordon said in a statement about this year’s festival. “Musicians and listeners from every corner of the music world are pushing beyond their boundaries, questioning their roots, searching and stretching for the new. There’s so much audacity and so much courage. We want to show you all of it.

“With the creation of LONG PLAY, we are presenting more kinds of musicians, playing more kinds of music, bending more kinds of minds. LONG PLAY expands and enlarges our scope and our reach, and puts more new faces on stage than ever before. It’s a lot of music!”

The theme of this year’s festival is “An Explosion of Mind-Bending Music of the Moment.” Some of the headliner/highlighted groups: Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kris David/Dave Holland, Matmos, Michael Pisaro, Pan in Motion, Sun Ra Arkestra and Vijay Iyer.

Left Edge Percussion, directed by Longshore, is SOU’s graduate-level percussion group in residence at SOU’s Oregon Center for the Arts. The group regularly collaborates with artists of various media, and are featured at festivals and events worldwide.

The SOU Percussion Ensemble, directed by SOU alumnus and faculty member Bryan Jeffs, is made up of SOU music program students who perform on campus and across the Rogue Valley at a variety of community events. Several students who were slated for the 2020 festival will now get the chance to participate.

“I was so disappointed the festival was cancelled in 2020,” said Jared Rountree, a junior music major and member of the SOU Percussion Ensemble. “But when we were invited again to this year’s festival, I was overwhelmed and excited. I am so ready to get out there and perform again in front of a big audience – I feel like I’m getting my life back through music.”

“We will perform along a star-studded cast of performers and composers at the festival, and this is truly an incredible opportunity for our students and alumni,” Longshore said.

And speaking of alumni, two of Longshore’s first music students – Joseph Perez ‘07 and Rebecca Merusi ‘06 – will meet up and perform with SOU during the festival.

“The piece ‘ricefall’ is composed for 16 players and we only had 14,” Longshore said. “So I reached out to a couple of percussion alumni that live near Brooklyn, to see if they would join us.”

“I didn’t even hesitate to say yes, when Terry called and asked if I would perform,” Merusi said. “I started as a percussion ensemble at SOU before Terry arrived at SOU. Now, to be joining them in a performance 20 years later, is absolutely epic.

“SOU is very much a center for the arts, and I am unbelievably proud of my experience and legacy there, and enthusiastic about everything that continues to develop.”

Merusi is connected with the Eastman School of Music, plays with a local philharmonic ensemble, and is an executive team leader for Target Corporation.

Both SOU groups will perform one piece during the festival. Left Edge Percussion will perform “Strange and Sacred Noise” by composer and Pulitzer Prize for Music awardee John Luther Adams, at 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 30. Adams uses his music to describe the natural world, how nature changes us and how we change it, impacting the health of our planet.

The SOU Percussion Ensemble will perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 29, a piece called “ricefall” by Michael Pisaro, director of the Composition and Experimental Sound program at the California Institute of the Arts. The ensemble in this piece will create a sonic environment, visual and intensely quiet and dramatic, and use rice falling like a gentle rain, from the hands of the performers, onto a variety of objects and surfaces.

The festival won’t be livestreamed, but tickets are available at: www.longplayfestival.org, and range from $95 to $350.

SOU’s percussion groups will also perform on campus – both ensembles will perform Re-Construction at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 5, in the SOU Music Recital Hall; the SOU Percussion Ensemble will perform “ricefall” at 7:30 p.m. on May 26 in the SOU Music Recital Hall; and Left Edge Percussion will perform “Strange and Sacred Noise” on June 3 at the CVA First Friday Gallery Opening in the courtyard in front the SOU Art Building.

Story by Kim Andresen, Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU

Composers of color featured in SOU concert

“Splinter” woodwind concert features composers of color

The SOU Music Program will present “Splinter”  – a woodwind concert featuring composers of color and directed by SOU’s Rhett Bender – at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 22, in the SOU Music Recital Hall. Tickets are $10 for general seating, and SOU students, faculty and staff are free.

Three SOU woodwind groups will perform: Quintet of 7 Reeds, saxophone quartet Saxistential and newly the formed clarinet quartet Panic in the Practice Room. The small ensembles are made up of SOU music faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and alumni.

The performance will open with Piotr Tchaikovsky’s “Album of Music” with “Winter Morning” and “Russian Dances,” followed by Rodgers and Harts’ “My Funny Valentine.”

The Saxistential Quartet – made up of Amanda Esser, Jack Kovaleski, Reese Lanier and Randy Nguyen – will perform “Ragtime Dance” from African-American composer Scott Joplin (aka, the “King of Ragtime). Joplin is well known for more than 50 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet and two operas. Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Arkansas, and developed his own musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. He left his job as a railroad laborer in the 1880s and traveled as a musician, visiting Chicago for the World’s Fair of 1893 – which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897. Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri, in 1894 and earned a living as a piano teacher. He began publishing music in 1895, and publication of his “Maple Leaf Rag” in 1899 brought him fame. The piece had a profound influence on writers of ragtime.

“Royal Garden Blues,” by African-American composers Clarence Williams and Spencer Williams (not related), will make up the middle of the program. The two collaborated in 1919 on the piece, which was popularized in jazz by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and has since been recorded by numerous artists and has become a jazz standard. The song is considered one of the first popular songs based on a riff. Clarinet quartet “Panic in the Practice Room” – made up of Jack Boulter, Randy Nguyen, Martin Bichinsky and Jackie Lu – will perform the work.

Also featured during the program will be composure David Bennett and his “Prelude and Scherzo.”

Written for reed quintet, Marc Mellits’ “Splinter” will wrap up the program and feature eight movements that convey the musical characteristics of different majestic hardwood trees – including red oak, sugar maple and weeping willow – which gives the concert its title. The piece will be performed by Quintet for 7 Reeds, is made up of music faculty Lorin Groshong and Rhett Bender, students Jack Boulter and Randy Nguyen, and SOU alumus Travis Muñoz.

To learn more about concerts and performances at the Oregon Center for the Arts at Southern Oregon University, visit https://oca.sou.edu. For tickets, contact the OCA Box Office at 541-552-6348 or by email at boxoffice@sou.edu, or purchase tickets online at https://sou.universitytickets.com.

Story courtesy of the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU

President Rick Bailey will support Special Olympics with a "Polar Plunge."

President Bailey, SOU Raiders, make splash for Special Olympics

SOU President Rick Bailey will join other members of the campus community this year as they “take the plunge” as part of a local benefit for Special Olympics Oregon.

Bailey will line up Saturday morning on the edge of the unheated, outdoor pool at Rogue Valley Country Club in Medford with students from the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU. Bailey and other members of the team will jump into the pool – whose water temperature is expected to be about 44 degrees – as part of the annual Southern Oregon Polar Plunge. More than a dozen SOU Raiders are expected to participate in the event, which is free and open to the public.

“Although I am not a fan of jumping into cold bodies of water, I am a HUGE fan of Special Olympics and the wonderful things that organization does,” President Bailey said. “I’m excited to help bring awareness to a great and worthwhile cause.”

Polar Plunge for Special OlympicsAn SOU contingent joins hundreds of other teams made up of students, law enforcement, gyms, corporate partners and thrill seekers across the state each February to make an icy dip. Proceeds from the events provide uniforms, sports equipment, and regional and national travel opportunities for athletes with intellectual disabilities.

“My sister and I are both plunging this year,” said Elena Patterson, a senior music major at SOU. “Our brother is a below-the-knee amputee and he has dyslexia. He’s 15 and a freshman at AHS. I like plunging every year because it’s a fun event. You show up and everyone is nervous but excited and finally it’s your turn to go up and the water is so cold! But everyone is cold together. Can’t wait!”

Raiders have been plunging for three years in-person, and students participated virtually last year because of the pandemic. Martin Bichinsky, a sophomore music major at SOU, plunged for the cause at home by submitting a video of himself being doused with a bucket of ice water in his backyard.

SOU alumnus Jared Brown ’17, the Youth Orchestra Manager with Pacific Symphony in Los Angeles, is sponsoring two students by donating $100.

“I continue to support Special Olympics year after year out of love for my cousin, Thomas, who lives with non-verbal autism and aphasia,” Brown said. “I greatly appreciate the effort folks exhibit through activities like Polar Plunge as they bring awareness and visibility to those living in our communities with special needs.”

Another alum, Jayme Dittberner ’21, a teacher at Talent Middle School said, “I like plunging because I love having the opportunity to raise awareness and money for the Special Olympics athletes. It’s really amazing to see so many people in the community coming together for something so important. It’s been a lot of fun the last two years that I’ve done it, and I know how much of an impact we are making by participating in the event.”

The SOU community can join the SOU Raider team by plunging, donating or coming out to watch the event. The Southern Oregon Polar Plunge begins with registration at 9 a.m., costume contest at 10:30 a.m., and opening ceremonies and the plunge at 11 a.m. For more information, contact event manager Kim Andresen, or go to www.plungeoregon.org.

Two comedies in February for SOU Theatre

SOU Theatre is back: Two comedies open this month

(Ashland, Ore.) — Live performances from the SOU Theatre Program will return from a COVID-19 hiatus with plenty of laughs in a pair of February comedies: “The Thanksgiving Play” by Larissa FastHorse and “The Servant of Two Masters” by Carlo Goldini.

The first of the two winter term productions, “The Thanksgiving Play,” will open with an 8 p.m. performance on Thursday, Feb. 17, in the SOU Theatre Building’s Black Box Theatre, at 491 S. Mountain Ave., in Ashland. Additional performances will be at 8 p.m. on Feb. 18 and 19, and Feb. 24 through 26; and 2 p.m. on Feb. 26 and 27.

There will be limited seating, so those interested in attending are encouraged to contact the Oregon Center for the Arts Box Office early to reserve seats.

The political satire is directed by Steven Sapp and features a cast of four SOU students: Nate Walker, Jodie Chapin, Jade Krische and Andrew Chvatal. What could go wrong when three bleeding-heart liberals undertake to mount a woke Thanksgiving play? Just about everything in Larissa FastHorse’s hilarious satire of clueless white people straining to be politically correct.

The second production – which will overlap the first – is a zany farce in which a perpetually famished lackey schemes to double his wages by serving two masters simultaneously, and goes to increasingly desperate lengths to conceal his ruse. “The Servant of Two Masters” is directed by Brendan McMahon, an assistant professor of theatre at SOU, and features student actors Aleeyah Enriquez, AnaLea Varni, Chloe Boyan, Hayley Kennen, Jennie Babisch, John Price, Keigin Tosh, Kyler Deanda, Sam Whitler, Nicole Villavicencio, Thilini Dissanayake and Tim Turner.

The show opens with an 8 p.m. performance on Thursday, Feb. 24, in the Theatre Building’s Main Stage Theatre. Additional performances will be at 8 p.m. on Feb. 25 and 26, and March 3 through 5; and 2 p.m. on March 5 and 6.

Both of the comedies will have reserved seating; please contact the OCA Box Office early at (541) 552-6348 or via email at boxoffice@sou.edu to reserve seats.

SOU COVID-19 POLICY: All event attendees must show proof of vaccination card (actual card, or photo of it on your phone) OR a negative COVID-19 Test (from a health center, hospital or doctor’s office) within 48 hours of the performance date for admission at the door. Thank you for adhering to our policy so we can keep our students, faculty, staff, patrons and performers safe!

-SOU-

Free tickets to OCA performances

OCA offers free performance tickets to SOU community

Did you know that if you are an SOU faculty, staff or student that you receive two free tickets to all SOU Theatre and Music program performances?

The Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU is pleased to offer this two-free-ticket benefit to the SOU campus community. Faculty, staff and students can reserve tickets online or by calling or visiting the OCA Box Office in person. The box office is located between the music and theatre buildings, at 450 S. Mountain Ave.

“We can now directly email you tickets for both reserved seating and general admission performances – for unlimited plays and music concerts,” said Kim Andresen, OCA marketing and box office manager.

Students, faculty and staff are strongly encouraged to reserve their tickets online in advance of performance days to help alleviate last-minute congestion in the OCA Box Office.

“This past weekend during a theatre performance, more than 40 people were waiting in line to purchase or redeem their free tickets in the OCA Box Office,” Andresen said. “It’s a bit of a tight space, and students and faculty could have avoided the lines altogether. We highly recommend that the SOU Community reserve their tickets early to avoid the last-minute rush.”

In addition to the SOU campus community ticket benefit, the OCA offers a reduced rate SOU alumni ticket for local or visiting alumni so that they, too, can enjoy the opportunity to attend performances and concerts. Also offered are reduced rates for seniors age 55 and above, and complimentary SOU VIP ticket reservations.

The OCA Box Office is open Monday through Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. for in-person reservations/ticket purchases, and one hour prior to performances. You can also get tickets via phone at (541) 552- 6348 and email at box-office@sou.edu. All ticket types can be reserved or purchased online at oca.sou.edu/tickets.

Examples of opportunities to use your free ticket benefit are this week’s SOU Percussion and Wind Ensembles concert titled “Meditations and Celebrations” on Thursday, Nov. 18, at  7:30 p.m. in the SOU Music Recital Hall. After Thanksgiving, the SOU Choir will also perform their end-of-term concert: “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” on Sunday, Dec. 5, at 3 p.m.; and don’t miss the SOU Jazz and Commercial Music Ensemble’s (re-named MUSIX) performance on Thursday, Dec. 2, at 7:30 p.m.

Many concerts are also presented via livestream on the Oregon Center for the Arts YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/OregonCenterfortheArts

SOU’s Theatre Program will also have four shows coming up during winter and spring terms (Black Box and Main Stage productions) and we hope the SOU campus community will plan to come and support the hard work and professional quality performances our students, faculty and staff create.

Another option for free music enjoyment is the Friday Music Showcase offered by the SOU Music Program. No tickets are necessary. This is a music appreciation class that showcases student and faculty performances on most Fridays (we follow SOU Academic Calendar for non- school/holiday schedules), as well as international guest artists, and the occasional Q&A or guest artist lecture. Livestreamed on the Oregon Center for the Arts YouTube Channel, and available in person 12:30 p.m. to 1:20 p.m. on Fridays in the SOU Music Recital Hall.

The SOU Campus Community is welcome to attend in person. For more information, call the Music Office at (541) 552-6101 or attend virtually https://www.youtube.com/c/OregonCenterfortheArts.

For more information on OCA performances please go to https://oca.sou.edu/events/ or contact Kim Andresen at (541) 552-6348.

Story by Kim Andresen, marketing and box office manager, Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU

Dorothy Thomas Kole in her mink stole

Remembering college fur-ever

Dorothy Thomas Kole often regaled her daughters with stories of her college years in Ashland – of her involvement in the theatre program, soliciting donations from community members of curtains, bedspreads, tablecloths and other materials that could be used to make costumes.

So it seemed only fitting to the daughters that they should donate a mink stole that was prized by their mother, who earned her teaching credentials in the 1938-39 academic year at what was then Southern Oregon  Normal School before beginning her life as a teacher and mother.

“We are so delighted that our mom’s mink will find a new home working as a theater costume piece,” daughters Linda Kole and Karen (Kay) Kole Leary said in a two-page, handwritten letter accompanying their recent gift to the SOU Theatre Department.

“She was involved in the plays Mr. Bowmer put on. (She always called him Mr. Bowmer.),” the letter said, referring to the late Angus Bowmer, who taught drama at the normal school and founded the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.

“She loved to laugh and tell about her big dramatic Shakespearean role,” Dorothy’s daughters said. “She had one line, ‘Master, he cometh!’”

Their mother had another key job in the play – she and a friend dressed as pageboys to open and close the curtains – but the daughters suspect that may have been “a bit of tomfoolery” by Bowmer.

Dorothy forgot over the years from which Shakespearean play that line had come, but her daughters narrowed it down by finding a playlist in the 1938-39 edition of the Oregon SON (as in, Southern Oregon Normal) yearbook. It could have been “Hamlet,” “Taming of the Shrew,” “A Comedy of Errors” or “As You Like It.”

“We’re not sure ‘master, he cometh’ is an actual line from any Shakespearean play,” the daughters said. “Perhaps Mr. Bowmer’s sense of humor was at play here, as well.”

Among the items that Linda Kole and Kay Kole Leary sent to the SOU costume shop along with the pristine mink stole is a photo of their mother wearing the fur piece and posing with her husband and daughters – who point out that they were “accessorized” with white, bunny fur hats and muffs.

“Our dad … does not appear to be draping himself in any dead animal skins, but we do have a photo of him with a dead dear draped around his shoulders in much the same manner as Dorothy’s minks,” the letter said, explaining that he was “packing it out on a hunting trip.”

Linda and Kay said that Dorothy – the daughter of a saw filer whose family had lived in Chiloquin, Ashland and Medford – loved her year at the Ashland college. She later taught in Oregon, California and Brazil

“She followed her brothers, Frank and Ralph, to Southern Oregon Normal and they all had careers as teachers,” the letter said. And it pointed out that due to her experiences in theatre productions, “she could make a costume out of anything.”

Dorothy Thomas Kole died in November 2019 in California, just short of her 101st birthday.

“Dorothy set her sights on living to 100,” her daughters said in their letter. “She planned on a ‘big birthday bash’ and lived a life that got her there. At her party, she danced to ‘Stardust’ and other songs that once echoed out of the old halls of Southern Oregon Normal School.

“Pet the minks for us every now and then, and give them our most fond regards.”

Virtual meeting of SOU Percussion Ensemble

SOU music ensembles get creative in their new, virtual reality

With some schools cancelling ensembles altogether, Paul T. French – Southern Oregon University’s Director of Choral Studies and Vocal Studies – had doubts about the spring ahead for his corner of the Music Program in the Oregon Center for the Arts at SOU. The idea of taking the choir virtual was especially daunting, with the experience rooted in collaborative rehearsals and harmonious performance.

“I didn’t even have a Google calendar,” French joked, “so we’re all kind of crawling forward and learning this together.”

SOU’s Chamber and Concert Choirs are joined for now and still rehearse twice weekly online. With upwards of 50 people on the screen, French and concert choir director Kendra Taylor watch as the singers mute themselves in their homes and perform individual parts to a piano accompaniment written by French’s wife, SOU instructor and staff pianist Jodi French.

Once they’ve learned and perfected the parts, they’ll record and send them to Taylor, who will plug them into and arrange them on an online music platform called Soundtrap.

“It calls for a lot of accountability from individual students because they can’t lean on other people, so the bar is higher and their own contributions are that much more meaningful,” Paul French said. “I’m proud of the students because they’re compassionate when we screw up and want to do whatever it takes to move forward, and after our second rehearsal the chat bar was full of all these tremendously positive and excited comments.”

The recording will be released later this spring. They hope to add a video component and perform the piece live in the fall, if all goes well.

Terry Longshore, SOU’s director of percussion studies, is taking a similar, virtual tack. Originally, he and SOU Raider Band director Bryan Jeffs had been invited to take 17 students to New York City in May for the inaugural “Long Play” music festival by the renowned contemporary music organization Bang on a Can.

In lieu of that trip, and considering the limitations some students have without access to their instruments, they’re working on an 18-minute piece in which 16 performers will pour dry rice over various materials – metal, wood, and leaves, to name a few. It will explore textural changes created by the rate at which the rice is falling. They will eventually turn their individual recordings into a video collage, and will later have the chance to interview the piece’s composer, Michael Pisaro of the CalArts School of Music.

Their other ideas include breaking into small groups that will create original soundtracks to short, silent films.

“They’re excited about the projects because they get to take advantage of what we have and try to make lemonade out of it while still learning something, having a unique creative experience and putting something out in the world that we’re proud of,” Longshore said.

French concurred with the sentiment.

“Given how isolated we feel, we’re not together, but we can see each other and create something together,” he said. “We still need art and this is what we can do.”

Story by Josh McDermott, SOU staff writer

SOU bachelor of fine arts cohort "the Frenzies"

Entire cohort of SOU bachelor of fine arts students perform in L.A. and gain internships

The 2019 cohort for Southern Oregon University’s bachelor of fine arts in performance program will get more than degrees after completing their requirements last month. All 16 members of the BFA program performed a thesis showcase in December, first on the SOU campus and then at the historic Miles Memorial Playhouse in Santa Monica, California.

And all 16 have secured internships at either the Oregon Shakespeare Festival or the Oregon Cabaret Theatre.

“Performing our thesis showcase in L.A. was a peek into the work it takes to put on your own show and let people see it,” said Taya Dixon, one of the actors who participated in the performance. “I now feel better prepared to produce my own art in a place like L.A., which makes me excited and more at ease to jump into the professional world.”

Jackie Apodaca, the head of performance for SOU’s Theatre’ program, redesigned the BFA-performance program’s thesis requirement several years ago. In place of a thesis paper, students now work collaboratively to create an industry-style acting showcase for a local audience.

This year, Apodaca led the senior BFA cohort – who call themselves the “Frenzies” – on the trip to Southern California, where they performed for friends, family, alumni and industry guests. 

In addition to booking the performance at Miles Memorial Playhouse, Apodaca was able to help the Frenzies find local internships and fellowships with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the Oregon Cabaret Theatre. Both have close relationships with the SOU Theatre program.

“We often place every BFA student in a professional internship upon graduation,” Apodaca said. “It’s exciting to know our graduates are consistently going straight into the profession. This success distinguishes us from many regional undergraduate programs that offer, frankly, less for more.”

The BFA is a pre-professional degree with a declared area of emphasis in either performance, design, technology or management/direction. Admission into the BFA program is through audition, interview, and/or portfolio presentation, and requires two years in residence and acceptance into an undergraduate theatre major. For more information about audition/interview guidelines and dates, you can contact the Theatre Office.

“I’m so excited for the opportunity to work for a professional theatre company right out of college,” said Annie Murrell, another member of the Frenzies. “Especially one with as renowned a reputation as the Cabaret. I feel prepared for life as a working actor in a way I never could have without receiving a formal education in theatre and performance.”

The full 2019 BFA cohort – the Frenzies – are Austin Ewing, Quinci Lytle-Freeman, Hunter Sims-Douglas, Wren Eustis, Taya Dixon, Bucanan Howard, Lauren Taylor, Carlos-Zenen Trujillo, Galen James-Heskett, Annie Murrell, Sam Campbell, Rachel Routh, Angela Hernandez, Sean Boulton, Meghan Nealon and Corey Renfree.

Story by Blair Selph, SOU Marketing and Communications student writer

SOU Percussion Ensemble members

SOU percussion groups to perform at prominent NYC music festival

Two percussion groups affiliated with Southern Oregon University will be featured this spring at the inaugural “Long Play” music festival – a three-day event at various New York City venues, produced by the renowned contemporary music organization Bang on a Can.

Left Edge Percussion, a contemporary percussion group in residence at SOU’s Oregon Center for the Arts, and the SOU Percussion Ensemble, a student group at OCA, both have accepted invitations to perform at the May 1-3 festival in Brooklyn.

They are among nearly 50 groups that have been announced so far for the Long Play festival, with additional acts expected to be added next month. Performances are planned for at least 10 locations ranging from the opulent BAM Howard Gilman Opera House to The Plaza at 300 Ashland, an outdoor venue in downtown Brooklyn.

Left Edge Percussion, an ensemble of graduate students in SOU’s master of music performance program, is led by SOU music professor Terry Longshore. The group and its members regularly collaborate with artists of various media and are featured at festivals and events worldwide.

The SOU Percussion Ensemble, directed by Longshore and made up of students in the university’s music program, perform often on campus and elsewhere.

“Our students will perform along a star-studded cast of performers and composers at the festival, and worthy of note, we are the only university ensemble being featured at this festival,” Longshore said. “All of the other performers and composers are world-renowned professionals.”

The two SOU groups will perform “Strange and Sacred Noise” by composer and Pulitzer Prize for Music awardee John Luther Adams, who uses his music to describe the natural world and his concerns for its health. They will also perform “Ricefall” by Michael Pisaro, director of the Composition and Experimental Sound program at the California Institute of the Arts.

Bang on a Can was founded in 1987 by lauded contemporary composers Julia Wolfe, David Lang and Michael Gordon. Lang and Wolfe have each been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Gordon is the composer of “Natural History,” which premiered with a 2016 performance at Crater Lake by the Britt Festival Orchestra with Steiger Butte Drum, members of the SOU Percussion Ensemble and various SOU music faculty and students.

Eclectic performances and demonstrations at SOU's Oregon Fringe Festival

Oregon Fringe Festival seeking applicants for week-long exhibition

The application deadline for the Oregon Fringe Festival – a distinctive blend of visual, musical, and theatre arts presentations – is Dec. 30. Interested parties can apply online here.

Started in 2014, the Oregon Fringe Festival (OFF), is an Oregon Center for the Arts-funded showcase of SOU students’ creative work. It includes presentations of music, visual art, theatre, dance, creative writing and spoken word, and is built to expand as needed. The festival invites artists from all stages of their careers – from beginners to award-winners – to mingle, network, and perform.

“Our mission is simple: to provide a platform for free expression, and work to secure a tolerant space for the sharing of ideas through story,” the OFF website says.

The six-day arts celebration will start on April 21, but applications to be a part of next spring’s Fringe Festival will be open only until Dec. 30. Those presenting at the festival – which is free and open to the public – will have a unique chance to get their work seen by professionals in their fields. Non-student professionals seeking to present at OFF are allowed to ask for donations to help recoup their costs of performing.

Applications are reviewed by the OFF director and a group of SOU students from the Theatre, Music, Visual Arts, and Emerging Media and Digital Arts departments. Late applications will not be considered.

Accepted applicants will participate in a production meeting to plan the logistics of their show and how it fits into the festival schedule before April. Last year’s OFF included 70 performances with an average audience size of 19 people, but organizers hope to decrease the number of competing performances at this year’s festival in an effort to boost the size of each audience.

The festival is partnered with Levity Circus Collective, Case Coffee Roasters, Jackson County Library Services, The Black Sheep Pub & Restaurant, Three Penny Mercantile and Jefferson Public Radio.

Story by Blair Selph, SOU Marketing and Communications student writer