1126Update

30TH ANNUAL PIANO CONCERTO FESTIVAL

Eight award-winning pianists will perform in the 30th Annual Piano Concerto Festival at 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday in the Killinger Auditorium of the Beto Criminal Justice Center at Sam Houston State University.

Performers include Jay Whatley, Keith Weise, Luvanna Brown, Trent Hanna, Rochelle Sennett, and Robert Boston, all SHSU students, and Joey Liaw, a student in St. John's School in Houston.

The performers have all won local, state, regional, national and international awards which enabled them to play concertos with the Moscow Philharmonic and the Dallas, Houston Civic, Corpus Christi, and Victoria symphony orchestras.

All are students of Dr. John Paul, chairman of the keyboard area at Sam Houston State. They will be playing concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Grieg, Prokofiev, Khatchaturian and Corigliano.

Admission for both evenings will be $5 for adults, with Friends of Music and SHSU and public school students admitted free.

TREE OF LIGHT TUESDAY

The 75th annual Tree of Light ceremony will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday near the Administration Building on the Sam Houston State University campus. Faculty, staff, students, and the entire community are invited.

In recent years individuals and groups have brought non-perishable food to the ceremony for donation to the Good Shepherd Mission and SAAFE House. The ceremony is coordinated by the Department of Student Activities.

DECEMBER DANCES TO BE PERFORMED

Choreography of Gus Solomon jr. and Mark Taylor will be featured in December Dances Thursday through Saturday in the University Theatre Center. Performances are at 8 p.m. with a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday.

Solomon is a major international choreographer from New York City and Taylor is with the Dance Alloy dance company from Pittsburgh.

The group Dance Spectrum, under the direction of Dana Nicolay, will perform Solomon and Taylor's works as well as choreography by the dance program's Nicolay, Cindy Carpenter and Teresa Walshak Trump.

Admission is $7 and $5 for students and seniors.

ALL THAT JAZZ

On Thursday evening the SHSU Wind Ensemble will present a program of jazz-inspired music written by classically-trained composers of the 20th century. Featured composers include Kurt Weill, Leonard Bernstein and John Harbison.

The concert begins at 7:30 p.m. in Killinger Auditorium in the Beto Criminal Justice Center. Admission is $5 for adults, with Friends of Music and SHSU and public school students admitted free.

"This unique concert will explore the influences of pop music upon the 'classical' world over the past eight decades," said Dr. Gary Sousa, ensemble director.

The program begins with the German composer Weill's 1929 "Little Threepenny Music." This suite, taken from Weill's "The Threepenny Opera," features the well known song "Mack the Knife."

Next on the program will be Bernstein's "Prelude, Fugue & Riffs." Written in 1949 for Woody Herman and his 'First Herd,' the work will feature SHSU faculty members Tamara Raatz on clarinet and Trent Hanna on piano.

The final piece on the evening's program will be a performance of a work entitled "Three City Blocks" by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Harbison. A faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he wrote "Three City Blocks" in 1991 reflecting his childhood memories of the sounds of the city as they permeated the radio waves in the 1950s.

Sousa said that Harbison's work represents the influences of urban life on rural America.

COMMUNICATIONS CAREER DAY

More than 150 high school students with interests in journalism and related fields are expected for the third annual Journalism Career Day Thursday. The event is sponsored by the Journalism Advisory Council.

Activities will include a filmed welcome by Dan Rather, competitions in lead writing and judging of yearbooks, newspapers, photos and advertisements, and roundtable discussions hosted by professionals in a number of communications areas.

Discussion groups include newspaper reporting, public relations/marketing, public relations/corporate; advertising/public relations/journalism clubs, advertising, magazine journalism, photography, television journalism, radio journalism, journalism education, sports writing, computers in journalism, and film production.

Activities will include a tour of the Dan Rather Communications Building and meetings with student workers in the areas of newspaper, yearbook, photography, radio station and Cable Channel 7. The event will conclude with an awards ceremony.

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE REVISED

The 1995-'96 Sam Houston State University holiday schedule has been revised to make Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Jan. 15, 1996, an official university holiday, with no classes being held on that day. The amended schedule deletes Thursday, March 21, as an official holiday for non-faculty employees.

Employees have the option, however, of working on Jan. 15 and taking another day, such as March 21, with approval of their supervisors. Other optional holidays for 1995-'96 included Sept. 25 & 26 (Rosh Hashanah), Oct. 4 (Yom Kippur), and April 5 (Good Friday).

The remainder of the 1995-'96 Sam Houston State University holiday schedule for employees thus becomes: Christmas - Dec. 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29; New Year's - Jan. 1; Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - Jan. 15; Spring Break (for non-faculty) - March 22; Memorial Day - May 27; Independence Day - July 4.

The week of March 18-22 is Spring Break for faculty and students.

UNIVERSITY FACULTY MEMBERS PARTICIPATE IN SPEECH CONFERENCE

Mary Evelyn Collins and Debbie Hatton of the Sam Houston State University speech communication program participated recently in the 81st Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association in San Antonio.

Collins authored a paper entitled "Ya'll and All: Ann Richards and the Rhetorical Power of Folk Speech." Hatton's paper was entitled "Women and the 'L': A Study of the Relationship Between Communication Apprehension and Gender." Both participated in discussion groups relating to their topics.

LEE ART EXHIBIT ON THROUGH DEC. 8

An exhibit of works by Texas artist Amy Freeman Lee are on display at the Gaddis Geeslin Gallery through Dec. 8. The Gallery is open from noon to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free.

While visiting and lecturing last week at SHSU, Lee was interviewed by Cable Channel 7. The interview will be shown Nov. 27-30 at 12:30 and 6:30 p.m.

Lee's visit, lectures and exhibition were sponsored by the College of Arts & Sciences.

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SHSU UPDATE is produced by the Office of Public Relations at Sam Houston State University. Faculty, staff, and students may contribute material by mail (Box 2105), (fax) 294-1834, e-mail pin_frk@shsu.edu, telephone (294-1836), or visit (212 Rather Communications Building).
Nov. 26, 1995