30-Minute Flash Topics: Music Performance Opportunities

So I'll kick it off with a quick intro, and then we'll take it from there.

Perfect.

Welcome everybody. Welcome to 30 minute flash topics. We are here tonight to talk about music performance opportunities at Kent State University. My name is Amber Wood. I'm from the admissions office. I will be your moderator. What that means is I'm going to be typing in the chat so keep an eye on that chat. I'll put some interesting and informative information in there, perhaps a link or two. How to get a hold of us, and most importantly, I'll be reminding you to ask questions.

So the idea behind the 30 minute flash topic is we're going to give you all the information you need in a short amount of time. Give you the opportunity to ask the questions that you want answers to most and give you info on how to get in touch with us in the future. So I am here with Eric. I'm going to let him introduce himself, take it from there.

Well, I thank you so much Amber. Hello, my name is Eric Black. I'm the music recruitment coordinator for the Glasgow School of Music at Kent State. Thank you for joining me tonight on my favorite day of pre spring #2 because you know, Northeastern Ohio is some pretty unpredictable weather that was 80 degrees this weekend and now it's 40 degrees. So welcome to music performance opportunities and the ensemble experience. I'm here to talk to you about.

Opportunities for majors, non majors, minors, all of that. The good thing is it's said in one of the ending slides but you are eligible for every one of these ensembles and I am going to be talking about today.

So I will go ahead and kick it off and start talking off with one of our most prevalent ensembles on campus.

Well, one of our most prevalent groups of ensembles on campus. The athletic bands.

So our athletic bands. We have the marching golden flashes as well as the flash of brass pep band. These are led by Doctor Darren Olson, who is our director of athletic bands. He is an absolute joy. I'll talk a little bit about him after I go through the descriptions of these so.

With marching golden flashes.

This is the marching band that's held during the fall semester.

They are who you see during football games. They are the rowdiest section that I love to see during the football games. The best cheering cheering section in the whole World wide world. One of the unique things about our band at Kent State is that instead of being five days a week for your rehearsal schedule for like 3 hours a night, you will typically rehearse Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM and one of the best things that I realized about that is that it really allows for our students to still have.

Lives outside of marching and all that good stuff. Kind of stuff because it's really important that you guys still are interacting with others in your majors, but having that community within marginal flashes.

Another great opportunity with Marigold flashes is that you're eligible for a $500 scholarship per semester with that band. Camp is required for the scholarship that is held in July. If I recall correctly, you'll be able to find some information on that on our website, which will be shown at the end of the presentation and one of the extra cool things they do travel for bowl games.

With that this past year this past December and January we got we were bowl eligible. We were solid six and six I believe and they got to play at the famous Idaho Potato Bowl. So they got to go to the wonderful world of Boise, ID and got to do some stuff with the University of Wyoming Band which is a really cool experience for them. They got the chart of their own plane. It was super cool along with that in the spring. We also have the flash of brass Pep Band, which primarily plays during basketball games.

Pep rallies, as well as other indoor sports. I know they've done some wrestling matches this semester. They've done volleyball in the past, so one of the things I always like to say about marching band, especially if you're an incoming freshman. It's one of the easiest ways to build community. It's one of the easiest ways to come in and instantly have friends. Because, you know, you have these people who have these shared experiences and mutual interests. So if I always love the athletic bands, they also have some of the best swag. So if you're looking for a great time, great friends.

Great swag, the athletic pants are definitely for you and we have plenty of those scholarships to go around. So if you are interested in that.

Definitely consider signing up if you want more information, some info from my contact information will be at the end so.

Moving on, we have more bands. These are concert bands.

So with our concert bands, those are directed by Doctor Ben Lorenzo, Doctor Darren Wilson and Doctor Wendy Matthews.

Doctor Ben Lorenzo is actually our brand new director of fans. We'll be starting in the fall. We're extremely excited to have him joining our team.

We have three primary bands. Two of these are auditioned ensembles.

We have the wind ansamble which is our top band and plays the most challenging Rep.

Of our bands and is mostly comprised of majors, but also has some minors and non majors. So you are totally eligible for it if you don't have audition anxiety and you know that you can kick **** at playing your instrument. Being a great musician, you can absolutely go out for it, but you also may end up in Symphony Band which is our second band, but they're playing slightly less challenging Rep, but there's definitely a broader range of majors, non majors and minors in that ensemble. There are still a great ensemble I've been to.

Accounts which are both of them.

But both of those you would have to audition for and 3rd we have our communiversity band so communiversity one of my favorite words combining community and university. So as you may have read in this, this is not an audition ensemble. If you show up for the ensemble and the rehearsal.

On the 1st rehearsal, you will be a part of it, so this one is mostly non majors in community members. But there are also music education students who are playing secondary instruments in that.

So you have plenty of opportunities whether you want to do something that's pretty casual to you, know, playing serious repertoire? I mean, it's completely up to you on what you want to end up doing, but we want you to know that you do have the opportunity for it.

One of the cool things about our ensembles coming up is that they are playing at Severance Hall on May 2nd for a 50th anniversary of May 4th concert. So we have a lot of cool opportunities for you at hand. If you do end up pursuing something like this.

And moving on from our bands.

A temporarily we're moving over to our Symphony Orchestra.

There it is.

All right, so our Symphony Orchestra is directed by Doctor John Ho Kim. As you will see in that lovely picture of him.

So the Kent State University Orchestra is another audition ensemble, but we want to ensure you that you that even if you're a non major, you are fully encouraged to participate in audition for the for the ensemble. The ensemble is about 50% non majors because it's hard to find string students who want to study an orchestra.

And another cool opportunity with that is that if you do participate, you are eligible for the orchestra society scholarships.

And you get to play awesome repertoire with the ensemble. I know I've been trying to put a little bug in Doctor Kim's ear to play some video game music because he is also like me a big video game nerd. His his game of choice was World of Warcraft and I always geek out when it gets to talk to him about that.

But you.

And we'll have the awesome opportunity to play next to master students who are finishing up their master's degree, trying to go to either get their doctorate or someone who is a first semester freshman. There's a wide variety of players within this orchestra, and you have a lot of very.

Fun opportunities because Doctor Kim you can tell how passionate he is about what he does in the orchestra.

I'm playing under his baton. I haven't done it, but it looks like something that every student who does it absolutely loves because he just brings such a great energy to what he's doing.

So if you have the chance to play an orchestra, especially if you're a string player we have, we have the opportunity for you and you will be eligible for that orchestra society scholarship.

We want to make sure that non majors have a great non majors. Minors have a great experience just like our majors do because we take you all very seriously. Want to make sure you have great opportunities.

And for those of you who may not be as instrumentally savvy.

Slowly but surely our choirs page is going to be loading up.

Excellent so we have multiple choirs under the direction of Doctor Scott McPherson, Doctor Jesse Reed Dr Malcoci, Professor Sam ahead and Professor Rodney Hubbard.

So.

Starting off with their two most traditional ensembles, we have the University of Coral which is open to all Kent State students via audition.

Most of it is just, you know, finding the right voice placement, finding the right part, it's going to work for you. That's still going to challenge you, but also make sure that it's not challenging you too much. You're going to get the appropriate workload from it. Along with that, we also have the Kent Chorus, which, similar to university coral.

It's that traditional Rep that you'll be singing, but there's no audition necessary for it. This one's a little more similar to referring back to Communiversity band. It is open to northeast Ohio at the Northeast Ohio community. Kent State faculty, staff, students, any of them who have choral experience. I always say that these community university and other ensembles are great ways to interact with members of the Community, especially because networking is incredibly important.

So now we get to a little bit more specialized ensembles with our choirs. Starting with the Cantique and our Coro cantare so the cantique is our specialized choir for treble Rep at used to be the women's choir.

Umm?

And then we also have the Coro Cantare which is our tenant base repertoire used to be the men's choir. But we make sure that it's as inclusive as it can be, so.

This is another audition. Require audition required.

Ensemble, so it's mostly just for placement. If you don't end up getting into any of these, don't ever feel discouraged because great news. You have four to five years in university. Depending on what track you want to take, so you have plenty of opportunities.

So one of the other specialized groups in the words of Barry B. Benson. You like jazz. Yes, I do. You can join the Nova Jazz Singers, which focuses on jazz choral music with both solo and ensemble arrangements, and it's open to all undergrad and grad students at Kent State with that.

Being able to work on that solo and the solo repertoire as well as the ensemble Rep, it's really, really cool because it's a completely different vocal style than you would have in any of the other ones we've talked about so far. It would allow you to, really, you know, I always say jazz is one of the spices of music because I love jazz. I think it's awesome.

So you would have that opportunity as well along with gospel choir, which no audition is required for. You just have to come to the first rehearsal and then register to take the class. If you want to take over credit if you don't want to take it for credit, you don't have to.

Uh, with gospel choir it is exactly as it sounds, it's.

So much great energy that comes with it. You can see the electricity running through the ensemble. It's just a really cool experience. If you ever get to perform with it, take advantage of that because it's so fun. But if you don't, make sure you go and see it because it's a great experience to watch. And lastly, for our vocal ensembles we have opera, which is primarily music majors. If you are a music minor or non major, if you knock it out of the park you'll have a great shot. But Opera does have some pretty intensive.

Personal schedules, so it may be tough to work around, so that's why it's primarily music majors.

Uhm?

Whoa, went straight to jazz ensembles. Let's go I love that.

Alright, so moving on to our jazz ensembles with Professor Bobby Selvaggio.

With these, they are all open to instrumentalists and solo vocalists. It's really just the size of the ensemble and partial skill level to some degree, with the jazz Orchestra, it's going to be playing the toughest Rep of our our jazz ensembles, and it rehearses the most because of that. Rehearsing on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, 5:30 to 6:55. Along with that, we have the Jazz Workshop Ensemble, which is going to be a little bit smaller and an only rehearsing on Tuesday, Thursday 5:30 to 6:55.

As well, the skill level is not. It's not like a huge gap because we have a ton of talented jazz students that it's just naturally. We're going to hit a hit. A limit of people we can have in certain ensembles. So if you're in jazz orchestra or workshop ensemble, you have the opportunity to play awesome Rep with Professor Bobby Lovins to death with jazz combos. That's where it gets a little more individualized.

Because in music we have chamber music which instead of having like a large band it's like having, say in my case a brass quintet.

So with this you can have groups of small heads, two people up to groups of 10 people. It just depends on the people that you want to end up working with and finding the right group for you. I mean, jazz combos give you a really unique opportunity to work with unique instrumentations that can provide great challenges and great success to you so.

With all of these, they are audition based, so you'll audition for Professor Salvaggio.

Great news as he is a really cool as the jazz would say a really cool cat as the non jazzers. He's just a really cool dude to work with. I think he is absolutely fantastic and if you ever get the chance to work with him yet again take advantage especially I could say that about all of these because we have incredible faculty who really care about the student experience and want to make sure that our students are taking care of and are getting a fulfilling musical experience.

So moving on from our jazz ensembles, we are now to our world and new music ensembles. So these first three ensembles that are listed, the steel band, African Ensemble and Tie Ensemble those are going to be listed in as World Music Ensemble and different sections. We'll differentiate which ones they are. We also have new music ensemble which I'll talk about at the end. So steel band. The easiest way to describe steel band is if you've ever watched The Little Mermaid.

And here under the sea, that's the instrument that you hear in steelband. I can attest. I love hearing Steelband because I get to hear them rehearse all the time. And it's always super relaxing. It makes me feel like I'm on a beach, but it is open to all students that can't say no. Music background is required for this, so you have if you played trumpet for five minutes when you're in the 5th grade.

You're eligible to play in this ensemble if you're just like I think this is a really cool opportunity. I've never even looked at music. You can join this ensemble and they play multiple forms of different Trinidadian music and music from the US. And yet again, no auditions required for it. So if you want to end up pursuing this, you can absolutely do it, and you will have a great time doing it, because every student I've seen coming out of rehearsal from that comes out with a big old smile on their face. Along with that, we have African ensemble also directed by.

After games have.

It is actually the ensemble that you will see as the background picture with the really snazzy outfits.

So this is yet again open to all students, regardless of musical background. So if you don't have any, you can absolutely do it. If you have a lot of musical background, guess what you can absolutely do it. So this includes traditional instrumental pieces from several countries in Africa. There's a cappella music and involved multilingual songs and even urban pieces. Using guitar, trumpet, double bass, flute, and saxophone. There's still no audition required for it with those with the more.

Western instruments that will probably have students who do play those instruments and have the instrumental experience for it.

But it's such a great experience that seeing non western music because we hear every day we hear, not we hear Western music, which is very traditional. Whether it's classical pop, jazz, hip hop, anything like that, but getting to really branch out and see.

Non western non western music and we're getting even farther eastern. Once we got a tie on ensemble and get to actually combine the cultures, it's a really cool effort, collaborative effort. And it's also a part of our dedication to diversity in the School of Music. So now we have our tie ensemble with Doctor Pawan Nadakam.

Yet again, it's open to all students. You don't have to have any musical background if you don't want to, but you can have musical background to be in this ensemble. Still, this one focuses on Pcat music, which is a classical tie genre that incorporates xylophones, gongs, circles, quadruple read obos, and various types of percussion.

With it, it is. I actually got to hear this at our convocation where we gave out scholarships this past week and it was a really unique sound experience. One that I had never actually heard before.

And honestly, it's something that just like sparked interest. As soon as I saw it, I was just sitting at the edge of my seat.

Uhm?

Which is hilarious because it wasn't the Super exciting piece, was just so many sounds that I wasn't used to hearing. So the great thing about our world music ensembles is that there's no audition required for them and you can get a really unique experience experiencing.

Atypical music in terms of Western tradition and really move into the world music spectrum. Along with this, we have new music ensemble. This is directed by Doctor Adam Roberts from our composition faculty as well as Doctor Perry Roth, who is our saxophone faculty.

So with this as you can probably tell from the name of the ensemble new music, you're playing music that was written within the past 20 to 30 years, rather than stuff from the 1718 early 1900s.

So they perform relevant music of our time and it's through both small and large ensembles, so you can have a really unique experience playing things written for. Yet again, three people up to 20 people. It's really, really, really nice. This one is definitely more music major inclined, but any other qualified students are invited to participate. Another ensemble that I did forget to put in here was our percussion ensemble, which is mostly filled by our percussion majors, but if we have some standouts, they are fully invited.

To invited to come audition as well.

So.

I said this at the beginning and I will say I will repeat it again. One of the best parts about this is that you are eligible for all of these ensembles.

You have the excellent opportunity to do our audition based ensembles with marching villages, flash, Libras, Wind Symphony, Symphony Band, Symphony Orchestra, Corral. All the other ensembles that are listed there on the left. I don't need to read all of them to you.

But with some of them like the audition process, is not as scary as it may seem. As someone who has taken.

Hundreds of auditions in his life.

The one great thing you can remember is anyone who has been in these ensembles has had to deal with it. Whether there are major non major minor or even the current professional, they're pretty plenty of professional musicians who went to Kent State who had to go through this process when they were your age. So we. But the auditions also differ with when Symphony and Symphony Band. It's more of like the traditional placement along with some of the other stuff. But with like, say, marching, golden flashes and flasher brass, it's really just to see.

OK, which part should we I mean like?

How can you operate with moving, marching and playing? It's.

And so we can really give you the opportunity, the best opportunity to succeed with our non audition based ensembles. Yet again, you have the opportunity to show up to that first rehearsal. Get your name on the list. You can take it for credit. You cannot take it for credit, but you can have excellent opportunities to work with.

Our great faculty work with great members of the Community, great majors, great non majors, great minors. All of that so.

You have all of the opportunities in the world for this and if we go to that last slide, we'll be able to see where you can find more information regarding all of these ensembles. I highly encourage take a screenshot of this one because if you have any questions that I can't answer, these what websites can absolutely answer them?

So For more information, Parenthetic fans can't I slash MGF or bands slash bands and then.

As you can see, the rest or at the bottom you can contact bands at kent.edu or E. Black 11 at kent.edu, and if you're even interested in pursuing a minor or this.

This inspired you so much to pursue a major. Then you can also contact me and I can help you pursue that as well, because it's never too late. You have a great opportunity ahead of you. You're all talented and your own ways, and you're going to be the next great generation to something. And who knows, you could be the next great musician. You just don't even know it yet.

So Eric, that was an amazing presentation. Thank you so much.

Oh, it's my pleasure.

Just to let everybody know we had a couple questions come in. This is being recorded. It will be on the admissions website so I know that was a lot of amazing information. You can rollback and you'll be able to see it again. So we have a bunch of questions. So in true 30 minute flash topic fashion, we're going to flash through these.

Perfect.

Question number one, are woodwinds allowed in the marching band?

Absolutely.

Question number two, when is band camp?

So band camp is right now it is.

OK, it's alright.

If I recall correctly, the middle of July, but you can check the MGF website or email me and I'll get back to you with this sentence. Stone dates for it.

All right, next question is how competitive is the marching band to get into?

All right now, because we are we are building it up and we have plenty of scholarships available if you can. If you have the ability to play your instrument well and most of the wind instruments you are good to go with, color guard and drumline. We do have a set number of spots as well as our twirlers and a set number of equipment, so that may be a little bit more competitive, but we are implementing alternate spots as well into that, so you will have the opportunity and another thing that I just thought of is.

Even if you have some scheduling conflicts where it's like, oh, I can't make the 1st 30 minutes of rehearsal on Monday, you still have the opportunity to be in marching band.

And that one you would just be able to work out with Doctor Olson. I can get you in touch with him on all that beautiful stuff.

Fantastic, our next question is do any of your ensembles include spots for electric guitar or bass players?

For those primarily our jazz ensembles and new music ensemble will be especially especially jazz. We're always looking for bass players this and as a bass player myself, I I will send out some appreciation and kudos to our bass players.

Awesome. How are we able to play odd instruments like bass clarinet?

How are we able to play on instruments? Excellent question. So that will most likely be through Communiversity band, Symphony Band, and Wind Ensemble. With orchestra you know we have for our wins especially and ends up being a lot of the top music majors that we have.

But you may also have the opportunity through new music ensemble to do that as well with bass clarinet. I know that we currently are not marching that and.

And marching golden flashes and flash rebirth. Same with like Barry Sacks. But we may be doing that in the future when we get up to larger numbers so that it can fit the instrumentation.

Great is musical theater available to all majors?

So our musical theater program is very competitive. It is technically not a part of the School of Music, with it being a part of the School of Theater and Dance.

It is available in lighter and lighter ways. I know that we collaborate in some ways with school with School Musical theater, but with that one I can get you in contact with the appropriate contact for that.

Fantastic, let's see here.

So we already talked about band camp. When are the auditions for marching band?

Auditions for marching band will be during. They can be submitted as early as now. If I recall correctly, and they will also be done partially during band camp so.

Yet again, if you email me or bands at kent.edu we can get you. We can get you there.

Great when do the bands practice? Is it like a marching band schedule or is it more like a class?

So it is a class for marching band yet again Monday Wednesday, Friday 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM with.

With our concert bands, those will be.

Those will be Monday, Wednesday, Friday for the if I recall for the Wind Symphony and Symphony Band and Tuesday, Thursday.

Actually just Tuesday for Communiversity band, but for that one definitely check out. Can't tell you slash bands.

Wealth of information. On there we're actually about to post a post. All of our audition information on there so.

Very cool.

What repertoire does the Symphony Orchestra play?

So we do play a lot of the traditional classical stuff, Beethoven Bach, this past year. I know we were playing Gustav Holst planet suite.

There is for our severance concert. We're doing some collaborative stuff with our choirs as well, so we play a lot of traditional Rep. We do some new repertoire as well. We also try to keep it diverse and make sure that we're.

Programming works by female composers. Composers of color, female composers of color.

So we're making sure that you're getting a diverse experience, not playing music just by, you know the same old dead white guys.

Awesome. Do you have instruments available to borrow from marching band like a sousaphone?

Absolutely. As a sousaphone player, I can confirm this that we do have sousaphones baritones.

Synonyms that kind of stuff available because most sane people do not own Asus phone.

I am not one of those sane people because I was actually doing work on my suit phone before this.

Oh my, I was a clarinet player and a drummer so I was a little bit more portable than that.

Ohh yeah.

Well, let's see here. What is the best website to find the information about the marching band?

That will be kent.edu/MGF.

All right, here's one I play mallet percussion and want to join the marching band. What are my options?

Is there a mallet percussion in the marching band or do I have to learn a different instrument?

So with our marching percussion we do not have a front ensemble, but we do have.

Snap the typical snare drum, bass drum, tenor, drums and symbols.

But you will if you wanted to do other ensembles as well. You would have opportunity to do malperfusion.

Perfect, can you tell us a little bit about how many students participate specifically in university court coral? And is it cantique?

That, and making that right.

Yes.

Yes, cantique so Cantique and Coro cantare are a little bit smaller in terms of ensemble size. Just because it's a little more specialized in terms of you, said University of Coral, correct?

Hmm.

Alright, so with that one, that one is a little bit more size. What we have about 45. We average about 45 to 55 students in that ensemble.

Whether it is and it's a, it's a very fine mix of majors, minors, non majors and sometimes even our musical theater students end up singing in them as well.

Fantastic. Well, I can't believe this, but we are at 7:30. We have answered all of our questions every single one. So we we have one more question that came in so this will be our last question. Do any of the choirs do choreography?

Not to my knowledge. I don't believe that we have any that are in like the show choir realm.

So I can get back back on that one for you and do some investigative journalism.

All right, so that truly was our last question. So thank you, everybody for joining us for a 30 minute flash topic. I learned a lot about music performance opportunities at Kent State, so I hope that you did too. Again, you'll see this this website here.

That has or or this slide that has all of the different websites that you can go to to get more information. Eric has offered his email address. If you can't think of anything and you remember one thing. If you remember admissions at kent.edu, we can get you in touch with anybody that you need to be in touch with Eric. Do you have any closing thoughts for us?

I just appreciate you all being here. It's great to see you the next generation of students coming in, especially those who are interested in the arts. Whether it's just for fun or something you want to end up pursue. So if you ever need any help, I'm easy to find my doors always open and my email inbox is always open, but if you get me on the weekends I might be playing with my wife and my dog.

So thank you very much everybody for joining us. I like to end all of our sessions with a go, flashes and wave and we can't wait to see you on campus soon.

Have a great night.

Excellent.

Go flashes, y'all.