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ASU Department of Music to present Faculty Recital, Thursday, Oct. 18

10/15/2012

The Department of Music at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro will present the second concert in the 2012-13 Faculty Recital Series featuring ASU faculty members Lauren Schack Clark, Guy Harrison, Marika Kyriakos, Dale Clark, and Matt Carey on Thursday, Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m. in Fowler Center, Riceland Hall. The concert is free and open to the public.

The concert will include performances of the following compositions: “Three Preludes from Book 1” by Claude Debussy; “Six Studies in English Folksong” by Ralph Vaughn Williams; “Sonata for Piano and Violin in F” by Ludwig van Beethoven; “Selections from Clairieres dans le ciel” by Lili Boulanger; “O Sainte medaille…Avant de quitter ces lieux” from “Faust” by Charles Gounod; “Il balen del suo sorriso” from “Il Travatore” by Giuseppi Verdi; “Wie Todesahnung…O du mien holder Abendstern” from “Tannhauser” by Richard Wagner; and “I’m Glad I’m Not A Tenor” by Ben Moore.

Dr. Lauren Schack Clark is associate professor of piano and has performed as a soloist and collaborative pianist throughout the United States and Europe. Solo performances have included recitals in Italy and at Berklee College of Music, Boston. She has collaborated with faculty members of over 20 universities throughout the world, including Eastman School of Music and University of Michigan, and with principal symphonic players from groups such as the Boston Symphony. She has presented at the MTNA National Conference, and is active in MTNA. She is immediate past president of the Arkansas State Music Teachers Association. Her doctor of musical arts degree is from Boston University.

Guy Harrison is a recent addition to the music faculty.  Originally from Australia, he will soon complete his doctoral degree in violin performance at Michigan State University under the direction of Dr. Walter Verdehr. He is in demand as a performer, teacher and clinician, and has held positions with the Lansing, Jackson, and Lubbock Symphony Orchestras. He has also performed with the South Bend, Traverse and Kalamazoo Symphonies. Harrison has performed extensively in Australia, and has toured the USA, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, and New Caledonia, as well as performing at Canada’s Winterlude Festival. 

Dr. Marika Kyriakos has been teaching voice and directing the opera program since joining the music faculty in the fall of 2008. Though originally from Columbia, Mo., Kyriakos came to ASU from Texas, where she taught at Tarleton State University for nine years. Regarding her passion for the operatic stage, Kyriakos has particularly enjoyed her work in Italy with the Opera Institute of the Rome Festival.  In the United States, she has become quite creative in making opera attractive to all ages within environments in need of cultural enhancement. 

Dr. Dale Clark is adjunct instructor of bassoon.  His reed-making seminars have been presented at International Double Reed Society Conferences and his articles about reed making have been published in the Double Reed.  Dr. Clark is principal bassoon of the Delta Symphony. In 2003 he was Principal Bassoon of the Sewanee Festival Orchestra and bassoon instructor at the Sewanee Summer Music Festival.  Dr. Clark has performed guest artist recitals and taught master classes at the University of Florida, University of Missouri-Columbia, University of Texas-Austin, University of Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music, Florida State University, Cork (Ireland) School of Music, and Berklee College of Music.  He is a former member of the Memphis Woodwind Quintet and owner and reed maker for Clark Bassoon Reeds. His major teachers include Ed Knob, Keith McClelland, Gary Echols and Matthew Ruggiero.

Matt Carey, a veteran of the concert and opera stage, has been a member of the voice faculty at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro since 1997. He also teaches German and French diction, vocal pedagogy, song literature and music appreciation.  He has been music director and conductor for the ASU Theatre Department's annual musical and has co-hosted the College of Fine Arts radio program "Spotlight on the Arts" on campus National Public Radio member KASU.  Spanning a career in which he has performed over 40 roles, Carey has sung with opera companies throughout the United States.  From 1992-1996 he was principal baritone with the prestigious opera ensemble at the Theater Lübeck, Germany.  As a concert artist, he has performed with the symphony orchestras of Hamburg, Kotka (Finland), Santa Barbara, the NDR Orchester of Bremen (Germany), Pine Bluff, the Delta Symphony Orchestra and the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra. He continues to perform recitals throughout the region in which he programs a wide variety of repertoire from the song cycles of Schubert and Schumann to popular standards of Gershwin, Kern, Berlin and Rogers.  Carey is also a licensed speech-language pathologist.

Sean Pollock serves as director of music and worship at First United Methodist Church in Jonesboro, where he coordinates a large and diverse music program.  Sean holds a bachelor of liberal arts from the University of Memphis and the master of music in choral conducting from ASU where he studied with Dr. Dale Miller. As an accomplished collaborative pianist, he has worked with world-class singers including Stuart Neill, Sandra Lopez, Cheri Rose Katz, Viola Dacus, and Horace English, as well as All-State and Region choruses in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.  Pollock is pursuing a doctor of musical arts in collaborative piano at the University of Memphis with Dr. Victor Asuncion.

The audience is encouraged to visit the Bradbury Gallery during intermission.  The current exhibition is entitled “Occupants.” The Bradbury Gallery bi-annually features the work of two faculty members from the ASU Department of Art. This fall, two one-person exhibitions will be held simultaneously to present new paintings by John Harlan Norris and Melissa Wilkinson. The exhibition runs from Thursday, Oct. 18, through Friday, Nov. 16. The opening reception will be held Thursday, Oct. 18, at 5 p.m. A gallery talk with the artists will be held on Tuesday, Oct. 30, at noon. All images are courtesy of the artists.

For more details, please call the Department of Music at (870) 972-2094.

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