News
NKU Students Chosen for KMEA Intercollegiate Orchestra
Posted 11.02.09
NKU Music is pleased to announce that three of the four percussion spots for the KMEA Intercollegiate Orchestra are NKU students. Chosen by taped audition, the three NKU percussionists are Fletcher Kaufman, Andy Mersch, and Scott McEvoy. All three are currently students of Dick Jensen, NKU Adjunct Professor and CSO Percussionist/Associate Timpanist and studied with Scott Lang prior to moving to Dick¹s studio. Other NKU students chosen were Nick Stutsman, clarinet, and two NKU students were chosen as first alternates, Keegan Finkbine, bassoon and Will Messenger, trumpet.
Video: William Hogg Performs with Leroy Ellington and the Essential Funk Band
Posted 09.16.09
Assistant Professor of Saxophone and Director of Jazz Studies Mr. William Hogg was recently a featured soloist on the Fox 19 News “Tonight’s Ticket” with Leroy Ellington and the Essential Funk Band. One of the most in demand groups in the tri-state, Leroy Ellington and the E-Funk Band have entertained thousands of people for the past 15 years. A short interview with band leader Leroy Ellington is followed by a live performance of an original song titled “Something Funky Goin’ On” and features a saxophone solo by William Hogg, affectionately called “Professor Boss” by his students at NKU. CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO
NKU Announces New Assistant Professor of Trumpet
Posted 03.20.09
Raquel Rodriquez will be the new Assistant Professor of Trumpet at Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, Kentucky beginning in the Fall 2009 academic year. Prior to her appointment, Dr. Rodriquez served on the faculties of Washburn University in Topeka, KS and Southeastern Oklahoma State University. Currently, Dr. Rodriquez performs with the internationally known Synergy Brass Quintet. As a member of SBQ, she has performed in over 200 concerts and clinics across the nation.
Raquel has extensive performance experience in brass ensembles. In her youth, Raquel was a member of the 1992 Star of Indiana Drum and Bugle Corps. In 1994, this organization left the marching fields for the concert stage and became a show called Brass Theater. This organization had successful touring summers with the renowned Canadian Brass. Raquel was a performing member of Brass Theater in 1995-96 and 1998. During this time she performed in the Hollywood Bowl, Tanglewood, Wolf Trap, Interlochen, Blossom, Ravinia, and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. She also recorded a CD with the Canadian Brass (Brass Theater II) as well as a PBS special that was nationally aired in 1996. This organization went through another rebirth and became a show called Blast!. Raquel was a member of the original London Cast.
Raquel is an advocate of the Brass Band movement in North America as an educator and performer. She was a member of the solo cornet section of the award-winning Fountain City Brass Band, a traditional British-style brass band based in Kansas City, from 2006-2008. During this period the ensemble won 3 national titles and became one of the premiere brass bands in North America. Raquel is an award-winning cornet player recently winning the 2007 NABBA high brass technical solo competition, Best Cornet and Best Solo Performance Awards at the 2007 US Open Brass Band Championships, and 2008 National Trumpet Competition finalist (runner-up) and award winner of the 19th Century Cornet Competition in the Historical Division.
As an orchestral musician Raquel has performed with many regional orchestras in Texas, the Sunflower Music Festival Orchestra, and the Kansas City Symphony. Raquel has been featured as a trumpet/cornet artist and clinician with various orchestras, universities, high school bands, brass bands, and music conferences throughout the United States, England, and China. Raquel is a Conn-Selmer artist and performs exclusively on Bach Trumpets and the Conn Vintage One flugelhorn.
Raquel received her BM and MA degrees from West Texas A&M University and DMA degree in trumpet performance at the University of North Texas. Her former teachers include Dave Ritter, John Holt, and Keith Johnson.
NKU Announces New Director of Orchestras
Posted 03.20.09
Dr. Francisc Restesan will be leaving his current position as band and orchestra director at Union College this summer to join the faculty of NKU this fall as Director of Orchestras.
A native of Romania, Restesan received a Bach Performance Diploma from the Bach Academy in Stuttgart, Germany in 1992 and undergraduate and master’s degrees from the Romanian Conservatory of music in 1995 and 1996. He completed a DMA in orchestral conducting at the University of Arizona 2007. Frank’s past teaching appointments include positions as orchestra director, strings and chamber music instructor at Atlantic Union College and Walla Walla College. Frank has appeared on prestigious stages around the world including recitals and concerts in Romania, Hungary, Germany, France, Spain, Holland, Puerto Rico and the legendary Carnegie Hall in New York City.
NKU Flute Professor Wins International Competitions: Heads to Carnegie Hall
By Janelle Gelfand • jgelfand@enquirer.com
Posted 03.02.09
Two local musicians are getting to Carnegie Hall by practice, practice, practice – plus a little help from YouTube. Dr. Nina Perlove of Blue Ash, an adjunct professor of flute at Northern Kentucky University, and Hyungtag Lee, a doctoral student at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music who plays double bass, have won spots in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra, the world’s first cyber symphony formed in an online contest held on YouTube.com. YouTube, a Web site which allows people to watch and share videos, announced the winners on Monday.
Perlove and Lee are two of 90 musicians from 30 countries who will make up a global orchestra. They beat about 3,000 other hopefuls, who submitted audition videos to the landmark online project. They’ll fly to New York for a four-day classical music summit, culminating in a live orchestra concert conducted by San Francisco Symphony music director Michael Tilson Thomas at Carnegie Hall on April 15.
Perlove, who learned she had won late last week, said that keeping it a secret over the weekend was the hardest part. “My husband is teasing me about filling up half of the audience with relatives and friends,” she said. For the occasion, Tan Dun, Academy Award-winning composer of the film score “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” wrote “Internet Symphony No. 1, “Eroica,” to be performed in the Carnegie Hall program. Contestants were required to perform his piece, as well as a piece of their choice.
Neither musician had planned to enter. Perlove, 35, already produces flute tutorials on YouTube. Ironically, she was teaching other contestants how to prepare their selections for the YouTube Symphony, when friends suggested she enter, too.
“Usually you don’t try to help your competitors by telling them ways to prepare their music better,” said Perlove, laughing. “But I was excited about getting involved with it from both angles.”
Lee, 34, a native of Seoul who lives in Clifton, made his video at the urging of friends, on the day of the deadline. Cincinnati’s streets were covered in snow and ice, and he barely made it to CCM in time to make his video in a practice room.
When he heard he’d won, “I was surprised and worried,” he said – worried because he doesn’t know how he’ll get his bass to Carnegie Hall. Lee doesn’t own a travel case for the largest instrument of the string family.
The audition was open to both amateurs and professionals. Last month, musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony narrowed down the video entries to 200 finalists, who ranged in age from 15 to 55.
After Feb. 14, the public voted online for their favorites. Tilson Thomas, along with the “YouTube community,” chose the musicians who will play at Carnegie Hall. Since the initiative was launched in December, the YouTube Symphony channel, www.YouTube.com/symphony, has logged more than 13 million views worldwide.
YouTube, said Perlove, “is a very powerful tool, and the reach and scope in the two years that I’ve been doing it is mind-blowing.” The YouTube Symphony was a joint initiative between the YouTube community and a consortium of more than 40 classical music performers and institutions, including Carnegie Hall, Tilson Thomas, Tan Dun and superstar pianist Lang Lang.
Selected videos from the project will be merged into one collaborative video, to premiere at Carnegie Hall on April 15, and on YouTube.com beginning on April 16. You can see Dr. Perlove's prize-winning performance by clicking here.
NKU Keyboard Department Successful with Winter Piano Pedagogy Conference
Posted 02.12.09
The NKU Keyboard Department proudly announces the success of its first annual Northern Kentucky Winter Piano Pedagogy Conference, hosted by the NKU Music Department on Saturday, February 9, 2009.
The conference featured four nationally recognized MTNA clinicians, Dr. Richard VanDyke, Dr. Michelle Conda, Amy Rose Immerman and Cheryl Staats as well as a recital of students of both NKMTA and OhioMTNA-SW teachers.
The conference was planned, directed and organized by Dr. Diana Belland with the assistance of Northern Kentucky Music Teachers Association President, Rita Larkin and former OhioMTNA-SW President, Dr. Richard VanDyke. Students enrolled in the NKU Piano Pedagogy Certificate program served as Conference Assistants.
The sessions, which attracted an overflow audience of teachers from southwest Ohio and nothern Kentucky, included, "Educational Software for the Music Studio," "First Impressions; Seeds for Musical Growth," "Working With Adult Students--All Ages, All Levels," and "Practice to Prosper; Motivating Students to Reach Their Potential." The conference concluded with a beautifully played thirty minute recital presented by Madina Akhatova, violin (student of Christina Merblum) and Yulia Yun, piano (student of Sergei Polusmiak, the Tom & Christine Neyer Professor of Music at NKU.)
The Keyboard Department is also happy to announce that NKU has been selected as the site for the 2009 Kentucky Music Teachers Association Fall Conference, October 16-20, 2009.
NKU Music Shines at KMEA Conference
Posted 02.09.09
NKU Symphonic Winds Steals the Show with a Brilliant Performance
As you may know, our Symphonic Winds ensemble under the direction of Brant Karrick was selected out of numerous college groups state-wide to be one of the featured performing bands at the Kentucky Music Educators Conference in Louisville. They were given one of the prime performing times on Friday, performing to a packed house of the state's most prominent music educators. The students played with utmost precision and musicality, performing some very difficult literature with seemingly effortless technique--always in control, always clear in intent. NKU Music faculty member Nina Perlove joined the ensemble as a guest soloist in the Flute Concerto of French composer Jacques Ibert. Her virtuosity and musicality in this performance shone through the twists and turns of the score offering aural evidence as to why she is one of the rising stars in flute performance--recognized not only in this country, but internationally as well. The audience gave a well-deserved standing ovation to Karrick, Perlove, and the NKU Symphonic Winds. The concert venue was buzzing with compliments following the program. Congratulations are in order to all who participated, but especially to Dr. Brant Karrick who continues to inspire his students to higher levels of achievement.
NKU Music Faculty Member David Dunevant Voted in as KMEA President-Elect
The performance of NKU's Symphonic Winds was not the only source of Northern Pride at the Kentucky Music Educator's conference last week. Word came in over the weekend that our own David Dunevant, NKU Professor of Trombone and Music History, was victorious in his election bid to become the 30th President of KMEA. As is customary in the administrative practice of the organization, Dunevant will serve two years as President-Elect, two years as President, and two years as Vice-President. Founded in 1907, the Kentucky Music Educators Association is the largest music education organization in Kentucky consisting of over 2,000 professional music educators at all levels from kindergarten to the university level who are dedicated to the cause of music education in Kentucky. KMEA maintains an active involvement with groups such as the Arts Kentucky, the Kentucky Alliance For The Arts, and the Kentucky Coalition For The Arts - all dedicated to the improvement of arts education in the Commonwealth. To date, no Northern Kentucky University educator has ever held this top position at the organization. This, combined with Randy Pennington's (NKU Director of Choral Activities) recent appointment as College/University Division Chair will give Northern unprecedented representation and influence in the sphere of music education throughout Kentucky. Congratulations to Prof. Dunevant for his important election victory.