All Music Department Programs
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Triumph Over Tragedy
The Fry Street Quartet
The renowned Fry Street Quartet performs Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132 and Bela Bartok's String Quartet no. 1.
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Fry Street Quartet
The Fry Street Quartet, Robert Waters, Rebecca McFaul, Bradley Ottesen, and Anne Francis Bayless
FRY STREET QUARTET - The remarkable Fry Street Quartet hailed as "a triumph of ensemble playing" by the New York Times - is a multi-faceted ensemble taking chamber music in new directions. Touring music of the masters as well as exciting original works from visionary composers of our time, the Fry Street Quartet has perfected a "blend of technical precision and scorching spontaneity" (Strad). Since securing the Grand Prize at the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the quartet has reached audiences from Carnegie Hall to London, and Sarajevo to Jerusalem, exploring the medium of the string quartet and its life-affirming potential with "profound understanding ... depth of expression, and stunning technical astuteness" (Deseret Morning News).
Reaching in new directions, The Fry Street Quartet has commissioned and toured new works by a wide range of composers. Pandemonium by Brazilian composer Clarice Assad received its Fry Street premiere with the San Jose Chamber Orchestra; Michael Ellison's Fiddlin' was co-commissioned by the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Series and the Salt Lake City based NOVA series; Laura Kaminsky's Rising Tide was commissioned especially for the quartet's global sustainability initiative, The Crossroads Project, toured with projections of paintings created for the project by artist Rebecca Allan, talks by physicist Dr. Robert Davies and photographs by acclaimed environmental photographer Garth Lenz. The quartet's 2014- 2015 season included its premiere of Kaminsky's new chamber opera, As One with soprano Sasha Cooke and baritone Kelly Markgraff at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, as well as a new work by Libby Larsen entitled Emergence, which anchors the Crossroads Project's Second Chapter, Crossroads: Emergence for string quartet, film, and actor.
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Zappa and Zappa: Counterculture California in the 1960s
The Performance Practice Institute at Utah State University, Caine Jazz Combo, and Andrea DeHaan
Join us for the Museum and Music Series. Today's concert takes a broad look at the concept of "counterculture" by considering three manifestations that flourished in California from the 1950s to the 70s.
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Utah State Flute Studio
Nancy Toone, Jenna Bouvang, Erin O'Donnell, Jennifer Christensen, Ashlee Hatcher, Hannah Jones, Allie Patton, Kryshelle Kindred, Marnie Jensen, Alex Traini, Samantha Keller, Patty Serbousek, and Beth Foley
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Listen in the Library: USU Clarinet Choir
USU Clarinet Choir and Nicholas Morrison
The monthly concert series, Listen in the Library, featured student performers in library spaces on the Logan campus. These short, pop-up concerts were one of the ways the USU Libraries was involved in USU’s “Year of the Arts” in 2017-2018. While the library regularly features students’ visual art and exhibits, Listen in the Library brought the performing arts into the space, making student accomplishments in music audible and visible to a community outside the concert hall.
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Listen in the Library: USU Flute Choir
USU Flute Choir and Leslie Timmons
The monthly concert series, Listen in the Library, featured student performers in library spaces on the Logan campus. These short, pop-up concerts were one of the ways the USU Libraries was involved in USU’s “Year of the Arts” in 2017-2018. While the library regularly features students’ visual art and exhibits, Listen in the Library brought the performing arts into the space, making student accomplishments in music audible and visible to a community outside the concert hall.
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Big Bands
USU Jazz Ensemble and USU Jazz Orchestra
USU Jazz Ensemble and Orchestra perform various jazz pieces in the "Big Bands" event.
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Big Bands
USU Jazz Ensemble, USU Jazz Orchestra, Greg Wheeler, and Jon Gudmundson
USU Department of Music presents Big Bands.
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La finta giardiniera
USU Opera, Sergio Bernal, Daniel Helfgot, USU Symphony Orchestra, and Dallas Heaton
La finta giardiniera (The pretend gardener-girl), K. 196, premiered on January 13, 1775 in Munich. Mozart was only 18 years old at the time of this premiere but already had eight earlier operas to his credit. Called by the composer a dramma giocoso (playful drama), this relatively-rare operatic subgenre is characterized by a mostly-comic plot and two larger acts with a shorter third act. Mozart’s only other contributions to this genre came years later with his much better-known operas Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni. Five years after its premiere, La finta giardiniera was revived and converted into another operatic subgenre, that of Singspiel. This genre primarily differs by having most of the dialogue spoken instead of sung (like a modern musical) and required a translation of the libretto to German. Our production merges both traditions, taking the sung Italian of the original dramma giocoso for the opera’s arias, finales, and a few recitatives and then speaking the rest of the Singspiel dialogue in English.
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Opera & Musical Theatre Scenes
USU Opera and Dallas Heaton
Opera & Musical Theatre Scenes with selections from A Little Night Music, Carmen, The Consul and Hairspray
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Interactive Cabaret and Amahl and the Night Visitors
USU Opera, Errik Hood, and Dallas Heaton
Much has changed since 1951, when Gian Carlo Menotti composed Amahl and the Night Visitors as the first opera ever written for television. Amahl and the Night Visitors is the story of a miracle that occurs when the Magi stop on their journey to see the Baby Jesus, and it has been a perennial favorite since its first live telecast more than 65 years ago. Despite its lasting popularity, some of the elements of this stunning work have not aged well. Referring to Amahl, the disabled young boy at the center of the story, as ‘crippled’, the calling out of the race of one of the Kings, and the message that a happy ending is reliant upon the curing of Amahl’s disability... these aspects can distract from the lovely music and charming story of a truly profound miracle-- the miracle of forgiveness, charity, selflessness, and healing. The miracle of love.
We have made some changes to the traditional presentation of this opera in order to make it all the more poignant for a modern audience. Our production takes place in the 21st century, where the poverty experienced by Amahl and his mother is an all-too-real reality for millions of people all over the world. The arrival of the wise men occurs in a shared dream between Amahl and his mother rather than in real life. The bleak financial state and the resulting strained relationship between Amahl and his mother are represented by shades of black, white, and gray. The dream world, in contrast, is full of vivid color, and even the black and white images of Amahl’s friends and neighbors are touched by this vibrant dream.
It is in this colorful, dream-like world that a miracle takes place. In the dream, Amahl is physically healed when he and his mother see the forgiveness and charity the Divine Child inspires in the Kings and are moved to acts of selflessness and charity themselves. It was important to me as a director that once the dream was over, the healing of Amahl’s disability wasn’t the focus of the miracle. Instead, we focus on the love, charity, and forgiveness experienced and how that ‘colors’ the real world for Amahl and his mother once they wake up... they see the world and one another in a new and beautiful way. Their relationship is healed. Their world is changed. THIS is the miracle.
Amahl and the Night Visitors, with all its flaws, teaches us an incredibly important lesson: that any person, no matter what abilities they possess or challenges they face, can be changed through love, charity, and forgiveness. Anyone can experience a miracle.
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Listen in the Library: String Division Chamber Ensembles
USU String Division
The monthly concert series, Listen in the Library, featured student performers in library spaces on the Logan campus. These short, pop-up concerts were one of the ways the USU Libraries was involved in USU’s “Year of the Arts” in 2017-2018. While the library regularly features students’ visual art and exhibits, Listen in the Library brought the performing arts into the space, making student accomplishments in music audible and visible to a community outside the concert hall.
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Chase Fine Arts Center 50th Anniversary Gala: Newel and Jean Daines Concert Hall Opening
USU Symphony Orchestra, Aggie Marching Band, Thomas Rohrer, Sergio Bernal, USU Chamber Singers, USU Chorale, USU Women's Chorus, Cory Evans, The Fry Street Quartet, The Caine Undergraduate Research Quartet, USU Combined Choirs, American Festival Chorus, Kelli O'Hara, American Festival Orchestra, Kurt Bestor, Cache Children's Choir, and Craig Jessop
Welcome to this evening 's grand gala performance in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Daryl Chase Fine Arts Center! Thank you all for joining us this evening. This anniversary and grand reopening celebration is one of the primary reasons that we have declared this Year "A Year of the Arts:" USU and the Cache Valley community have been leaders in the arts for the state of Utah, and I am proud as president of Utah State University to reaffirm our commitment to continue to make the arts a vital component of our land-grant mission at USU.
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Fate & Redemption: Grieg's Peer Gynt and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4
USU Symphony Orchestra and Sergio Bernal
Utah State University Symphony Orchestra presents Fate & Redemption: Grieg's Peer Gynt and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4.
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Concerto Evening, Celebrating the Winners of the Annual Student Concerto Competition
USU Symphony Orchestra, Sergio Bernal, Stephanie England, Emily Cottam, Amy Thacker, Benjamin Krutsch, Josiah Cordes, and Ethan Seegmiller
Celebrating the Winners of the Annual Student Concerto Competition
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USU Symphony Orchestra
USU Symphony Orchestra, Sergio Bernal, John Miller, and R. Dennis Hirst
Special performance of the USU Symphony Orchestra honoring John Miller as a special guest performer, alongside faculty member R. Dennis Hirst. The program features these individuals' talents with the bassoon.
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The Tri-State High School Band Symposium: An Honor Band Experience for the Region's Finest Wind and Percussion Players and Their Directors
USU Wind Orchestra, Thomas P. Rohrer, Jazz Orchestra, Jon Gudmundson, Caine Woodwind Quintet, Bonnie Schroeder, Aggie Marching Band, Lane Weaver, Caine Saxophone Quartet, Caine Brass Quintet, Max Matzen, Caine Percussion Quartet, Jason Nicholson, Robert Sheldon, and Mathew Inkster
A sampler concert conducted by Robert Sheldon & Mathew Inkster.
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Autumn Voices 2017
USU Women's Choir, USU Chorale, USU Chamber Singers, Heather J. Williams, and Cory Evans
The USU Women's Choir, Chorale, and Chamber Singers perform a variety of pieces for their 2017 Autumn Voices event.
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Recital Program
USU Youth Conservatory, Rylee Ericson, Ryker Ericson, James Boehme, Addie Smart, Kaitlyn Jensen, Emma Jensen, Lexie Hansen, Eliza Nelson, Taylor Packer, Rachel Larsen, and Holly Ganoe
This Recital Program presents the efforts of students to master specific pieces in their time practicing with the Utah State University Youth Conservatory.
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Big Fish: The Musical
Utah State Theatre, Jason Spelbring, and Dallas Heaton
Based on the celebrated novel by Daniel Wallace and the acclaimed Columbia Pictures film directed by Tim Burton, BIG FISH centers on Edward Bloom, a traveling salesman who lives life to its fullest... and then some! Edward's incredible, larger-than-life stories thrill everyone around him - most of all, his devoted wife Sandra. The story shifts between two timelines, the 1950's and 2001. In the present-day real world, Edward Bloom faces his mortality while Will prepares to be- come a father himself. In the storybook past, Edward ages from a teenager, encountering a Witch, a Giant, a Mermaid, and the love of his life, Sandra.The stories meet as Will is determined to find the truth behind his father's epic tales.
Overflowing with heart and humor, BIG FISH reminds us why we love going to the theatre - for an experience that's richer, funnier and BIGGER than life itself.
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Alumni Band Program 06/25/2017
Utah State University Alumni Band and Nicholas Morrison
The USU Summer Alumni Band consists of over 300 alumni of the band program at USU who continue to perform seriously following graduation, many as professional musicians or music teachers.
