Sing with AAC & ASO for Independence Day

The Ashland Area Chorus, a non-auditioned mixed choir of 40-60 participants, invites local singers to join them for the short summer session and to perform with the Ashland Symphony Orchestra. The 4-week rehearsal schedule begins on June 3 and continues for four consecutive Mondays including: June 3, 10, 17, 24. Each rehearsal is from 7-8:30 p.m. at Ashland University in Room 242 of the Center for the Arts (formerly the Arts and Humanities building). The session will conclude on Sunday, June 30 with a live performance of light, popular, and patriotic tunes with the Ashland Symphony Orchestra for the Pops In the Park concert at Brookside Park Band Shell.

The Chorus is open to the entire Ashland community and beyond, with previous singers travelling from Richland, Medina, Wayne, Holmes, and Crawford counties. Previous choral experience is helpful and encouraged. While there are no strict age limits, singers under 18 must be approved by the director. There is no cost to the singer for the summer session.

The AAC performs in several concerts each year on the AU campus and with the Ashland Symphony Orchestra. Recent appearances have included a stand-alone presentation of the Dvořák Mass in D Minor, subscription concerts with the ASO (including Orff’s Carmina Burana, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah), Ashland University choral concerts (including Handel's Messiah and the Brahms Requiem) and summer pops concerts in the park.

Current members should encourage their talented friends and neighbors to attend the first summer rehearsal to join this unique community opportunity. For further information, please contact the AU Director of Choral Activities, Dr. Ron Blackley, at rblackle@ashland.edu or (419) 289-5114. Or, simply show up on June 3.

Guard Tryouts, June 6

Ashland University Music announces that Guard Tryouts for Marching Band will be held on June 6 at 2 p.m. (following the orientation events for that day). We will meet in the band room and go from there.

QUESTIONS? Contact:
Joe Lewis, Director of Bands, Ashland University
jlewisjr@ashland.edu | 419.289.5132

Choir Touring to Chicago

All alumni and friends of Ashland University are cordially invited to attend one of the University Choir's upcoming concerts as they travel close to you. The 2019 tour presents concerts scheduled at various churches and high schools in central Ohio and northern Indiana. The following performances are free and open to the public.

Monday, May 6, 7:30 p.m.
Oak Chapel Methodist Church, 4203 W. Old Lincoln Way
Wooster, OH | 330.264.2537

Tuesday, May 7, 7:30 p.m.
Gethsemane Lutheran Church, 35 E. Stanton Avenue
Columbus, OH | 614.885.4319

Wednesday, May 8, 7:30 p.m.
Christ Lutheran Church, 2610 N. Campbell Street
Valparaiso, IN | 219.462.6660

Under the direction of Dr. Rowland Blackley, the 2019 tour program includes pieces by contemporary composers Morten Lauridsen, Don MacDonald, Shawn Kirchner, and Stacey Gibbs along with those of Mendelssohn, Bruckner, Britten, and Mozart. The AU Chamber Singers will contribute madrigals from the Renaissance and more popular charts from the 20th and 21st centuries. Selections from Haydn's “Little Organ Mass” round out the program. There’s something for every choral taste!

The choirs are accompanied by Dr. Timothy E. Guenther, University Organist and Director of Music Ministry at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Columbus, Ohio. He teaches applied organ and harpsichord, as well as courses in fundamentals of basic musicianship, and serves as accompanist as needed for the University Choir, Chamber Singers, and Ashland Area Chorus. He holds degrees in organ performance from the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, the University of Alabama and The American Conservatory of Music.

The University Choir is composed of singers representing many academic majors across campus. Each year the members are selected by private audition and rehearse three days a week. The ensemble performs programs of unaccompanied literature of all eras as well as major works with orchestra.

Spring Band Concert, April 28

Ashland University Department of Music presents its final band concert of the 2018-2019 academic year on Sunday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m. in Hugo Young Theatre with the annual Spring Band Concert. Admission to the concert is free and open to all.

The Ashland Area Community Concert Band (AACCB) under the direction of Leonard Salvo, and the Ashland University Symphonic Band directed by Joseph Lewis, Jr., will perform a program themed "At Home and Abroad" as it features compositions from various cultures from American marches and a southern hymn to English and Korean folk songs as well as a fiesta. The event will also recognize the senior AU Band members for their dedication and contribution to the AU Band program.

Although the AACCB will perform Ralph Vaughan Williams' Folk Songs from Somerset which is the last movement of his "English Folk Song Suite" -- the remaining pieces are American based including Chorale and Shaker Dance with variations of the well-known Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts;" Samuel Hazo's Southern Hymn; and American We, one of Henry Filmore's most well-known marches. Guest conductor Dave Wolbert will lead the band in a performance of selections from Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story.

The University Symphonic Band will present an international program beginning with Clifton Williams Latin themed Symphonic Dance No. 3, Fiesta followed by Williams' Sea Songs, W. Francis McBeth's Israel influenced Kaddish and John Barnes Chance's Variations on a Korean Folk Song. The concert will continue with a performance of Pavel Tschesnekoff's Salvation is Created dedicated to the memory of former AU Director of Bands Mr. Gary Ciulla. Professor Emeritus Salvo will then be the guest conductor for Julius Fucik's The Florentiner, Grande Marcia Italiana, and the program will conclude with Olympiada by Hazo.

Spring Choral Concert, April 28

The Ashland University Choir, Chamber Singers and Women's Chorus present their final choral concert of the 2018-2019 academic year on Sunday, April 28 at 4 p.m. in the Jack and Deb Miller Chapel. From Mozart to the Beatles and Pentatonix, the concert program celebrates the coming of spring and offers a preview of the University Choir's upcoming tour to Chicago. The concert is free and open to the public.

Dr. Rowland Blackley, Professor of Music and Director of Choral Activities, will conduct the University Choir in a performance of Benjamin Britten's Time from “Choral Dance from Gloriana,” along with the Kenyan folk song Wana Baraka, Mendelssohn's The Hundredth Psalm and Jack Halloran's arrangement of Witness.

The Chamber Singers, also directed by Dr. Blackley, will perform Penny Lane (as performed by the King's Singers), Ysaye M. Barnwell's Wanting Memories, I Had No Time to Hate by Nathan Howe with poetry by Emily Dickinson, and Swingle's arrangement of Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik.

Directed by Ashland University alumna Julie Strebler-Renner and accompanied by Susan Gregg, the Women's chorus' selections include Brian Tate's Hold Me, Rock Me; Light in the Hallway (as performed by the Pentatonix); the traditional Irish folk song Bandyrowe; and Yonder Come Day, a traditional Georgia Sea Islands melody.

Fairy Tales, Comedy & Tragedy at 2019 Opera Scenes

Every spring the Ashland University Department of Music offers audience members a chance to experience live opera through a variety of scenes from a collection of well-known titles. In 2019, the two evenings of opera scenes will be performed on Thursday, April 25 and Friday, April 26 at 7:30 p.m. in the intimate Studio Theatre at Ashland University. The performances are free and open to the public.

The variety of this year's scenes range from a fairy tale to comedies and a tragedy with many of them featuring story lines of love and romance. One similarity among all four of the operas is the idea of hidden and mistaken identities or masks. Also, all four of these operas are written by well-known composers (Mozart, Verdi, Strauss, and Humperdinck) and their titles (The Marriage of Figaro, La traviata, Die Fledermaus, Hansel and Gretel, respectively) are cornerstones of the opera world.

Based on the Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel is associated with the holidays and is often performed around Christmas. The Ashland performance will feature the opening scene where Hansel and Gretel are at their home and Hansel becomes very hungry. We all know what that leads to.

Several songs will be performed from Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus (aka The Revenge of the Bat) which is a story of mistaken identities, flirtations at a masked ball, elegant frivolities and confusions of all kinds. Our cast will perform "The Drinking Song" duet, Orlovsky’s aria, "Meir Herr Marquis" and "Sing to Love."

W. A. Mozart's comic opera The Marriage of Figaro tells the story of how the servants, Figaro and Susanna, taught their employer a lesson in fidelity and then succeeded in getting married. Selections from this comedy will include "Porgi Amor," "Voi che sapete" and "Sull’aria."

The most serious of the evenings' opera scenes will come from Giuseppe Verdi's tragedy, La traviata (The Fallen Women). However, the song selection for Ashland's opera scenes is one of the lighter moments of the story as the ensemble performs "The Brindisi," the opera's famous drinking song and one of the best-known opera melodies.

Under the direction of Sandra Ross and accompaniment by pianist Deb Logan, this annual event features vocal performances from student singers. This year's cast includes Drew Berlin (Barberton), Kendra Garver (Shreve), Maggie George (Independence), Mia Kardotzke (Clyde), Maya Rickard (Wooster), Dave Tomlinson (Cleveland) and Rebecca Young (Sherwood, Oregon).

Brass, Jazz, String & Woodwind Ensembles Recital, Apr. 23

On Tuesday, Apr. 23 at 8 p.m. in the Elizabeth Pastor Recital Hall, several student ensembles will perform in a joint recital including a jazz combo, woodwind, brass and string ensembles under the direction of Dr. Thomas Reed, Joseph Lewis, Jr., and Jane Reed, respectively. The concert is free and open to the public.