The fall semester at the University of Arkansas isn't even 48 hours old, but the UofA Music Department is already in motion. From a marching band sing-along to the return of Music Mondays to a series of outreach performances like an ensemble of trombones playing the national anthem at Arvest Ballpark in Springdale. Faculty and students will be all over the place, and this fall, we'll hear some examples of the concerts on Ozarks at Large Friday. Alan Gosman, department chair, and Jake Hertzog, associate chair, came to the Anthony and Susan Hui News Studio to get us ready for a steady stream of concerts.
Gosman: There's sort of a rhythm to the semester where a lot of things happen at midway through the semester. A lot of things happen at the end of the semester. We have all so many students already at the end of the semester as opposed to in the first week, of course, for instance. And so we try to spread things out and have, and we fill most days, but it gets really intense at certain points.
Kellams: Well, so you have been kind enough to provide me a list that's almost all front, all back of a standard piece of paper, and it doesn't even include everything. So there's no way we're going to talk about every performance that's scheduled through the department for this semester. But we can hit on some highlights, right? Yeah. I want to start with, and this is one that isn't either in Faulkner Performing Arts Center or Stella Boyle. The marching band is going to have a sing-along.
Gosman: Yeah. Their first concert, it's been either it's their first sing-along, or we just don't have a historical record of what the last sing-along was. Or some members, I'm sure some members of the audience of the crowd have sung, but the encouragement will be that all that everyone sings along and we're going to have a marching band sing-along in the first game. I'm told we've got "Don't Stop Believing," "Sweet Caroline," "I Want to Dance With Somebody." Some other songs, but it should be. They're really excited about it. The band's been working hard in very hot weather to get this ready for everyone.
Kellams: No kidding.
Hertzog: One of the things that makes our department so fantastic is the variety of music. And this semester we have everything from chamber music to soloists to jazz and Latin music, to our large ensemble groups such as our Schola Cantorum Choir and our University Symphony Orchestra.
Kellams: And there's something new with the symphony orchestra.
Gosman: Yeah, we just hired a new orchestra conductor, director of orchestral activities. Jessica Morrell joins us. It's just very exciting to have someone devoted to the orchestra. And she's scheduling "Scheherazade" for the first concert, I think Oct. 5. And we've seen her conduct, we're really excited to have her as part of our community.
Kellams: Yeah. It is Oct. 5 in Faulkner Performing Arts Center and then the symphony orchestra will also, towards the end of the semester, on Nov. 30, be back in Faulkner. Right. What about the Latin American ensemble with Thaden School Orchestra? Another Faulkner performance in October. What can you tell me about that?
Hertzog: Our Latin American ensemble has won two DownBeat awards for Best Latin American Ensemble in the whole country. And so this group is going to be collaborating with the Thaden school students to do a really special performance that incorporates Latin American music and all sorts of other styles. And that's going to be on Oct. 12.
Kellams: And that too is in Faulkner. But there's a lot in Stella Boyle happening this semester.
Gosman: We are really happy that Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall is open again. It's undergone a renovation. Has a fantastic engineered electro-acoustical system which won't play the notes, but it does affect how the acoustics in there are really phenomenal. And so all of our smaller groups and student recitals. A lot of our student recitals and faculty recitals will be in there for the semester.
Kellams: Something called Music Monday again this year. You did it at least last spring.
Gosman: We started it last year.
Kellams: Yeah. And that truth in advertising, it's music on Mondays.
Gosman: It is Monday. And it tells our community that every Monday. If you're wanting to go to a concert, it's down at the university. And as Jake just said, there is such a variety.
The first concert coming up on Aug. 31, Zen Brass. Rich Rulli is our trumpet professor. And he started this group about seven years ago with someone who was in the Air Force with him. And so we're really, it's a brass septet. We're really excited about that.
Hertzog: And we have a few guest artists that are on these Music Mondays, such as Courtney Miller. And we also have some of the university ensembles like our percussion ensemble, our faculty woodwind quintet, the Lyrique Quintette. And we have larger ensembles like the Wind Ensemble and the symphony are also part of that Monday series. And that's just on the Mondays.
Kellams: Razorbones been around for a while and will be performing again.
Hertzog: Yeah, we have one of the really cool things about a music school is we have a lot of people that play the same instrument, so we get to do really fun ensembles like the Razorbones. We're going to have a tuba festival called Oktubafest this semester.
Kellams: That's in October.
Hertzog: In October, going to feature tuba and euphonium players. And we're also going to have a piano competition, Florence Price piano competition. It's going to feature students and guest artists and faculty. So that's one of the really, really fun things about university is if you like an instrument, we've got shows for you.
Gosman: And it's really wonderful to gather those communities together. When you have Razorbones, it's not necessarily just the music majors that are making that up, but we'll have 12. Actually, I don't know the number of trombones that will be playing halftime, playing the Star-Spangled Banner at Arkansas at the Arkansas Naturals game. One Dollar Brats. That's on Aug. 25. So we've got all these good things together.
Kellams: So you mentioned the Razorbones performing the national anthem at Arvest for the Northwest Arkansas Naturals. That's not something that's going to be on the sheet you've given me. There are more University of Arkansas Music Department connected performances across the region than just what happens in Stella Boyle or Faulkner.
Gosman: Thankfully, the music department is not responsible for all that our faculty and all that our students want to do. They are doing hundreds of concerts a year, maybe involved with 5,600 concerts over the course of the year. Symphony. They're in the Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, different orchestras, the Tulsa Orchestra, Fort Smith Orchestra. There are just so many concerts where we're members, where we're involved. When you count all of those together, you get a very high number.
Kellams: And those are individual concerts. If you counted all the people in all the concerts, you'd be in the thousands of university-related musicians performing.
Hertzog: Absolutely. And that's one of the reasons why we love the idea that we're such an anchor institution for our music community, is that the multiplying of audience members and students and alumni and faculty, not just in Northwest Arkansas, but around the whole region and even far beyond.
Kellams: All right. We talked about Music Mondays. Every Monday in the semester. There's a performance on campus, but you also have Fridays covered, right?
Gosman: Yeah. Yep. So we take it, we really don't take a break in the middle of the week, but on Friday we have a.
Kellams: Yes, exactly.
Gosman: But on Friday we have Weekend Starts, which is a collaboration with the city of Fayetteville. These are on the Upper Ramble, from 5:30 to 7:30. It's a free concert. It's connected with our department. There are students or faculty, but often they bring in friends. And that's really exciting collaborations. Recently, Jake was playing a concert there and someone joined you who was.
Hertzog: Oh yeah, just a great guitar player from Oklahoma who was playing at George's that night, wanders by and says, hey, can I sit in? And it became a quartet just like that.
Kellams: Oh that's fun.
Hertzog: It was a blast.
Kellams: What I love about this time of year right now, while I'm kind of unfairly asking you about an overview, this season is because it's an academic institution, because you have so many students, you don't know the programs for much of them yet. Right?
Gosman: That's right. Yeah. But that's part of the excitement. Part of the excitement I don't know about for you. I mean, sometimes it means that we're ordering music and waiting for the mail so that the students have it. It's very exciting. But it's all based on. Here's what would be good for the students. This is something that they would enjoy playing, that would stretch them and something we want to do. And that sometimes develops as you get to know the students.
Kellams: All right. So the first official one on this sheet in front of me is Aug. 31, which is a Monday. So it's part of the Music Monday. That is the Zen Brass that you were talking about, Richard Rulli and musicians. That's in Stella Boyle Smith. That's free. Just show up. That's 7:30.
Gosman: Yes. Yep. Seven thirty. All you do. That's a pretty cool availability if you live here.
Hertzog: It's really special. I think one of the most wonderful things about what this department does is the way that people all over the community can come and hear a group like brass, or a piano competition, or an opera or a symphony. And that's a big part of what we do in our mission.
Kellams: And something we're going to do, starting well with this conversation is throughout the semester. We're going to keep people informed every week, and we're also going to hear some of the performances, right?
Gosman: Yeah. We're going to find out some of the favorites of, say, our orchestra conductor. Yeah. And get a sneak preview of what might be coming up or what they did recently. Share that with you.
Kellams: I'm excited.
Hertzog: I think it's going to be a wonderful semester. And we're really excited to introduce more of our faculty and ensemble directors to the wider audience, and looking forward to seeing everybody at the shows.
Kellams: All right, get some rest if you can. And I look forward to the semester.
Gosman and Hertzog: Thank you so much.
Alan Gosman and Jake Hertzog, chair and associate chair, respectively, of the University of Arkansas Department of Music, talked about the upcoming season of concerts and performances during a visit to the Carver Center for Public Radio on Friday afternoon. The Music Monday series will launch Aug. 31 at 7:30, with Zen Brass on stage inside Stella Boyle Smith Concert Hall on the UofA campus.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline and edited for length and clarity. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
