Reed Performs Concert of Songs & Dances, 11/5

The Department of Music at Ashland University announces a concert of Songs & Dances by Dr. Thomas Reed on Sunday, Nov. 5 at 5 p.m. in the Elizabeth Pastor Recital Hall in the Center for the Arts.

For his 33rd consecutive annual faculty concert at Ashland University, Dr. Reed will perform on clarinet and soprano saxophone with pianist Susan Gregg, violinist Jane Reed, percussionist Andy Pongracz and Gary Davis on trumpet. His concert program is comprised of contemporary compositions and arrangements of songs and dances including:

• Darius Milhaud's "Suite, op. 157b" which is inspired by a baroque dance suite with a jazz rhythmic style
• Paul Bowles' "Music for a Farce" consisting of 8 sections of "slap-stick"-like music with chase scenes and corny sentimental music
• Catherine Hoover's arrangement of John Dowland's three Elizabethan lute songs in "Ayres"
• Dave Heath's expressive and exciting "Concerto for Soprano Saxophone: The Celtic"

Reed is professor of music and chair of the departments of music and theatre at Ashland University where he has taught since 1986 in a number of areas including applied woodwinds, music theory and jazz studies. He is a member of the Akron Symphony and Ashland Symphony, was a long-time member of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, and has performed on clarinet or saxophone with the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Blossom Festival Orchestra, Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, Dayton Philharmonic, Youngstown Symphony, Blossom Festival Band and the Jazz Unit. He has been soloist with the Akron, Mansfield and Ashland Symphonies and performs on CDs from the Akron Symphony, Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra and the Paul Ferguson Jazz Orchestra. His clarinet CD “Mutually Inclusive” was released in 2008 on Capstone Records. He is also a founding member of Iron Toys, a woodwind quartet that performs original repertoire for saxophones, clarinets and flutes. The quartet released their first CD in 2015. He holds degrees from The Ohio State University, the University of Michigan and the University of Akron.