TU Music Announces Nov. 12 Oklahoma Centennial Concert

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

The University of Tulsa School of Music will present a concert honoring the Oklahoma state centennial at 7:30 p.m., Monday, November 12, at the Cascia Hall Auditorium, 2520 S. Yorktown Ave., in Tulsa.

The concert will feature the music of TU composers Roger Price, David Moore and Joseph Rivers, and performances by the TU Orchestra conducted by Richard A. Wagner, Trio Tulsa (Maureen O’Boyle, violin; Diane Bucchianeri, cello; Anna Norberg, piano), the TU Cappella Singers conducted by Dr. Kim Childs, and the TU Opera Workshop directed by Linda and Peter Strummer.

The event is free and open to the public.

The TU Orchestra will premiere TU composer Roger Price’s "Wa-sha-she: Day Music" and TU composer David Moore’s new composition entitled "Seminole Autumn Rondo." Several works by TU composer Joseph Rivers will also commemorate the Oklahoma centennial, including "Will Rogers Self-Portrait," excerpts from the Oklahoma opera "Prairie Dreams," and a new work for Trio Tulsa that was commissioned by the Oklahoma Music Teachers Association.

David Moore was born in Oklahoma and lived as a child on a farm near Seminole. He studied at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and also in Denmark and Finland. He received his doctoral degree from the Eastman School of Music. In addition to teaching music theory and composition at TU, Dr. Moore serves as Minister of Music at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church, and directs the High Holy Days Choir at Temple Israel. A "rondo" is a compositon structured around a recurring refrain. Seminole Autumn Rondo evokes the colors, sounds and ambience of the fall season in rural Oklahoma.

Pianist and composer William Roger Price has written music for orchestra, various chamber ensembles, voice, choirs (including numerous published church anthems) and, of course, piano. He performed his Rhapsodies (Piano Concerto No. 1) in a recording with the Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra and the premiere of his Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Orquestra Classico da Madeira (Portugal). Among other commissions, The University of Tulsa commissioned him to write his Fanfares and Cantus for Orchestra in commemoration of the University’s centennial in 1994. Price is Professor of Music (Piano and Composition) at The University of Tulsa.

Joseph Rivers is on the faculty of Music and Film Studies at the University of Tulsa and is Director of the TU School of Music. His Piano Trio (2007), commissioned by the Oklahoma Music Teacher’s Association, reflects the natural landscape and human story of native and pioneer Oklahoma. Additional works include an opera, Prairie Dreams, about pioneer Oklahoma; Will Rogers Self-Portrait, commissioned by the Will Rogers Heritage and the Claremore Community Chorus; Portrait of a Cat, for woodwind trio and dancer, performed widely in Oklahoma schools by the Council Oak Trio; an orchestral ballet, The Exile’s Return; and Lonely People of the Osage, a choral work about the Osage people near Tulsa, which received its New York premiere by the Gregg Smith Singers. His orchestra work, Echoes of War—Visions of Peace, commissioned and premiered by the Signature Symphony in 2005, was recently recorded by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra for CD release through ERM Media. His forthcoming CD, Nuova Avventura, will feature original compositions for piano and other instruments.

For more information, call (918) 631-2262 or email schoolofmusic@utulsa.edu.