Dr. Warren Gooch, professor of music, theory and composition, received top honors at the 23rd annual Truman Educator of the Year Banquet on April 18. Gooch teaches Music Analysis IV, Introduction to Music Composition and Music Composition Studio. He serves as chair of six campus organizations and is involved in numerous Truman programs and councils, including coordinator of the Master of Arts in Music program. Dr. Gooch received his doctorate in composition from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his master’s degree from the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and his bachelor’s degree from the College of St. Scholastica.

Warren Gooch

Outside of Truman, Gooch is active in countless music and arts organizations, such as the Iowa Composers Forum, Kirksville Regional Arts Association and Music Teachers National Association. Gooch also dedicates his time to local church-related activities such as church choir director and keyboard player, Sunday School teacher and Music and Worship Committee member.

Students nominate professors for Educator of the Year. Nominees then submit an essay and syllabus to the Educator of the Year committee, which selects the finalist. Students from the Pershing Society, Student Senate and Phi Kappa Phi serve on the Educator of the Year Committee.

The Truman orchestra, chorus and Cantoria will perform “The Creation” by Franz Joseph Haydn at 7:30 p.m. April 28 in Baldwin Hall Auditorium. The performance will be conducted by Dr. Sam McClure, professor of music and director of orchestras, and feature vocal soloists Ana Seixas, soprano, Thomas Hueber, tenor and professor of voice, and Ron Witzke, bass and chair of the Department of Music at William Jewell College. Seixas is in residence as a visiting student from the Puccini Conservatory in La Spezia, Italy. “The Creation” ranks among Haydn’s greatest accomplishments and is one of the most frequently performed of all oratorios. It will be performed in English and last approximately two hours.

The Truman Brass Choir under the direction of Dr. Gregory Jones toured St. Louis in the last week of March with performances at several high schools, and also were given a two hour master class onstage in beautiful Powell Symphony Hall. Acting Principal Trumpet Thomas Drake, Principal Horn Roger Kaza, and Principal Trombone Timothy Myers heard solo performances and also coached the ensemble offering many new technical and musical ideas to students. The event was organized by Maureen Byrne through St. Louis Symphony Partnerships. Pictured below is senior hornist Kayla Hawkins with Principal Horn Roger Kaza of the St. Louis Symphony.

Master percussionist and five-time Grammy award-winning artist Glen Velez will present an evening concert at 8 p.m. April 3 in Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall. He will also give a performance and history master class, open to all interested students and faculty, at 2:30 p.m. April 3 in the Student Union Building Alumni Room.

Truman State Department of Music and Truman Opera Theatre present Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. The opera, based on Virgil’s Aeneid, tells the fateful love story of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, a prince of Troy, who each must choose between their love for each other and their sense of duty – choices that will ultimately affect the course of history.

Performances will be given in the Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, March 15, 16, 17 at 8:00 p.m. and Sunday, March 18 at 3:00 p.m. Tickets for the performances will be on sale in the Ophelia Parrish building lobby Monday – Friday, March 12 – 16, 9:30 -12:30 and 1:30 – 3:30 as well as at the door. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students. A pre-performance talk about the opera will be given 50 minutes before each performance in Ophelia Parrish 2115.

The U.S. Army Forces Command’s Jazz Guardians are taking their talents on the road to Missouri for four performances, March 11-14. The four performances will be open to the public and will include colleges, a museum and a popular tourist attraction. The Guardian’s will entertain audiences with a variety of big band material including favorites from the Count Basie and Glen Miller catalogues along with more recent material of Harry Connick Jr., Gordon Goodwin, and John Labarbera.

“With the recent, tragic weather related events in the Branson/Kansas City area, our opportunity to make a positive impact on America’s public has never been more necessary,” said Spc. Jake Stith, the ensemble’s guitarist. “The region is rich with patriotism and support by a large military veteran population, so we’re planning on entertaining the people of Missouri in the way that only military bands do.”  The Jazz Guardian’s Missouri tour includes the following stops:

Sunday, March 11: Kansas City, American Jazz Museum public performance and music clinic: 1 p.m.

Monday, March 12: Kirksville, Truman State University public performance and music clinic with students: 7:30 p.m.

Tuesday, March 13: Branson, College of the Ozarks public performance and music clinic with students: 7 p.m.

Wednesday, March 14: Branson Landing performance: 4:30 p.m.

The Jazz Guardians is an 20-member group whose primary mission is to maintain and promote Jazz, a uniquely American art form. The group pays tribute to the big bands of yesteryear by performing the music made popular by such greats as Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Glenn Miller and Woody Herman. Demonstrating great versatility, the group also performs the latest and most innovative sounds of today’s most popular composers. The Jazz Guardians has been featured at numerous jazz festivals around the United States, performing with such notable artists as Louis Bellson, Bab Calloway, Bill Watrous, Conrad Herwig and Jamey Abersold. Given the ensemble’s broad talents and diverse repertoire, the Jazz Guardians offers concerts that are sure to entertain any audience.

The Jazz Guardians is just one ensemble of The Army Ground Forces Band, which serves as an outreach asset for the Army’s largest command, United States Army Forces Command. Home stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., The Army Ground Forces Band has traveled throughout the United States, performing at local, regional and national events and holding master classes and clinics at high schools and colleges. The 64 Soldiers assigned to The Army Ground Forces Band have passed highly selective auditions and are among the finest musicians in the Army Band Program. The majority of the band’s member have studied music at some of the finest universities and conservatories. For more on the band, see www.forscom.army.mil/band

Truman’s Concert Percussion Ensemble I, under the direction of Dr. Michael Bump, professor of music, has been honored with an invitation to be the featured ensemble at the Missouri Percussion Arts Festival for the second time, March 2-3, 2012 at the Cowan Civic Center in Lebanon, MO.

The Truman Concert Percussion Ensemble will perform the featured evening performance, showcasing a wide variety of traditional, world/ethnic and contemporary percussion music for large and small percussion ensembles. Between Concert Percussion Ensembles I & II, there are 23 student performers, both music majors and non-majors.

Members of Truman’s Percussion ensembles.

This is the 5th annual Missouri Percussion Arts Festival, which draws high school through professional-level musicians from all over the country to compete in solo competitions, participate in performance and educational clinics as well as visit with representatives of the percussion instrument manufacturing industry. In addition to the Percussion Arts Festival performance, the Truman ensemble will also be performing recruiting concerts at high schools in the Springfield, MO area.

The Upsilon Phi Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha is proud to announce trumpeter John McNeil as the guest artist for the 44th Annual Jazz Festival at Truman, which will be held on February 24th and 25th, 2012.  In addition to workshops and competitions for visiting high school and middle school jazz bands, there will be two featured concerts by Mr. McNeil: Friday evening at 8pm at the DuKum, and Saturday evening at 8pm in Baldwin Auditorium with Truman’s Jazz Ensemble.  He will also be presenting a jazz clinic at 5:30pm this Thursday in OP 2111.

The Music Department has announced that Maria del Pico Taylor will be the guest artist for the 29th Annual Truman Piano Festival on Feb. 18, 2012. Taylor serves on the piano faculty at the Temple University Boyer College of Music and Dance in Philadelphia, PA.

Taylor will conduct a master class featuring Truman piano majors at 9 a.m. on Feb. 18th in the Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall. She will then deliver a presentation on the Dorothy Taubman technique at 11 a.m. in Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall. The Taubman technique liberates pianists to play effortlessly, unburdened by physical limitations. Based on principles of physiology, the Taubman technique is built on the concept of coordinated motions of finger, hand and arm movements. Both the master class and the Taubman presentation are open to the public and free of charge.

Taylor was the first Cuban pianist to receive the coveted Canada Council Grant for advanced studies at the University of Toronto, where she graduated with distinction with Artist and Licentiate Diplomas in piano performance and pedagogy. She also has a master’s degree in piano performance from Northwestern University. Her teachers include Paul Stassevitch, Adele Marcus and Dorothy Taubman. She is a frequent presenter of lecture and master classes on the Taubman technique at state and national conventions throughout America.

Brendan Loula, a Truman alumnus, will give two presentations on African music, entitled “The Gambian Music Preservation Project” at 10:30 and 11:30 a.m. on Feb. 17th in Ophelia Parrish 2117. The presentation is sponsored by the Truman Department of Music. The presentation, a joint endeavor between the National Center for the Arts and Culture in Gambia and the Peace Corps, will focus on Loula’s work to help preserve fading music traditions in Gambia. The project includes recording session and interviews with dozens of musicians, culminating in a wealth of audio and visual materials. In addition, Loula will present a session entitled “Jaliya,” dealing with the caste of “griots,” or historian-musicians in West African hierarchical societies, at 1:30 p.m. in the Ophelia Parrish Performance Hall. Loula will attempt to give the audience a basic understanding of the complex system of societal structure and music.

At Truman, Loula focused on western music, but incorporated elements of international music in some of his pieces. After graduating, Loula applied for the Peace Corps and was sent to Gambia to serve as a health volunteer for a two-year term. He finished his service working with the Gambian Music Preservation Project, a month-long series of music recording treks. Since returning to the U.S., Loula has been working on securing a place for the recordings in American archives. He plans to pursue a master’s and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology in 2012. All events are free and open to the public.