The Siskiyou
The Voice of SOU Students
Southern Oregon University’s Music Hall (image provided by Southern Oregon University).
Student music recitals started on Thursday, January 30th at 12:30 P.M. They were free and open to anyone, showcased to the public in SOU’s music building. The recitals were a chance for the Music Department’s Programs to show off their talent. Performers will include SOU scholarship winners from high schools and current juniors and seniors.
On the 30th, four Southern Oregon students were featured. Recitals will continue through the rest of the academic year, offered (snow permitting) at the same time on February 6th, February 13th, and February 27th. There will also be spring recitals, also at 12:30 on Thursdays. The dates for those are April 10th, April 24th, May 8th, and May 22nd.
I’m neither intimately familiar with Southern Oregon University’s Music program or music theory and music as a genre, so the recitals in the Music Hall were fresh to me. A visibly excited Dr. Terry Longshore introduced the performers. The enthusiasm of the crowd was palpable, with each performance punctuated by loud bursts of applause. The performers themselves used instruments ranging from an enormous marimba (which looked and sounded a lot like a xylophone to me), which they manipulated with four mallets wedged between their fingers, to guitars and vocals.
Like any successful arts production at SOU, there was a synthesis of careful, ruthless practice with spontaneous talent. It’s clear why the performers have received scholarships. They are devoted to their craft and have spent countless hours honing it, and they’ve dumped that much blood, sweat, and tears into it because they care. Closely observing them shows the careful way they handle their instrument, the way they’ve committed every part of the performance to subconscious memory.
It’s also a good reminder of exactly how much diversity of sound can come from four different people. Each performer’s imagination carried them in dramatically different directions. Their pieces all had a distinct feel, even the two that used the same marimba. The music is all beautiful, and the performances so far remind us how many paths to beauty there are. No doubt, the Music Department and Southern Oregon community at large will be watching their progress with great interest.
The productions were:
Shannon Jackson, How Sweet The Thought of You as Infinite (originally produced by Emma O’Halleran), on the marimba.
Nolan Pierson, Virginia Tate (originally produced by Paul Smadbeck, 1956), on the marimba.
Liz Pisarczyk, Just Be (originally produced by Liz Pisarczyk, 2023), on the guitar with vocals.
Shea Miller, Va Godendo (originally produced by George Frideric Handel, 1737), singing soprano with Dr. Mikiko Petrucelli on the piano.
A video recording of the productions can be watched here.
Further information about future productions, furnished by Southern Oregon University and the Oregon Center for the Arts, can be found here.
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