Contact: Karie Patton
Mississippi State University's Guest Artist Series continues March 28 with a saxophone concert featuring Paul A. Bro in the Bettersworth Auditorium.
Bro is alto saxophonist with the Chicago Saxophone Quartet and an associate professor of music at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. Joining him will be ISU colleagues Jimmy Finnie, director of the Percussion Ensemble and Steel Drum Band, and Martha Krasnican, head of the accompanying program.
The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. Available at the door, general admission tickets are $5 for adults; $3 for faculty and staff. Student admission is free with a valid identification card.
Sponsored by the music education department, the concert will feature works by contemporary American composers, including John Harbison's "San Antonio: Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano"; Daniel Powers' "Peel Out!" for alto saxophone, percussion and piano; and Evan Chamber's "Crossroads Songs."
"Crossroads Songs," a mixture of multiple ethnic and regional influences, includes Albanian instrumental music, renaissance monody, Irish music, and Oriental detail. "A town at a crossroads where people from all over meet, and their cultures mingle and merge" is how the composer said he imagined the piece.
"Peel Out!" was inspired by Bro's experience with a disorderly man on a New Jersey bus who urged the driver to speed up by yelling, "Come on, peel out!" The composer's wife suggested incorporating the shouting into the piece.
Bro has appeared with the Chicago and Milwaukee symphony orchestras, Chicago Sinfonietta, St. Louis Symphony, and the Lyndian String Quartet, as well as with groups in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Taiwan.
Ragtime pianist Jack Oliva concludes the guest artist series with a May 1 performance. Former MSU music education department head, he now heads the music department at the University of Florida.