Spring Arts at Montclair State

This spring, the arts abound at Montclair State University with world premiere performances, theatre productions, and concerts offered by the Department of Theatre and Dance, the John J. Cali School of Music, and Peak Performances.

Tickets for each event are available through Peak Performances where every performance and every seat is only $15. Montclair State undergraduate students receive one ticket at no additional charge to every Peak Performances event, through the Performing Arts Fee, with their valid student IDs. Tickets must be picked up at the box office.

Peak Performances
LeeSaar The Company – FAME
Choreographed by Lee Sher and Saar Harari
In the world premiere of FAME, an international company of seven performers will strive to reach moments of fame as viewed through numerous pop culture filters and reference points. Utilizing an extremely physical and sensual performance style, truths are told and fragile secrets revealed as the audience strives to interpret the difference between what is seen… and what is perceived. Even the word itself, "Fame,"conjures up mental images of false realities, without exploring the unintended consequences of reaching for the stars. Lady Gaga, Grace Jones, David Bowie, and Broadway have all tackled the subject, now LeeSaar the Company will change the way you look at how we reach for the stars.
March 29 and 30 – 7:30 p.m. | March 31 – 8:00 p.m. | April 1 – 3:00 pm.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/FAME

Department of Theatre and Dance
Danceworks 2012
Artistic Directors Nancy Lushington and Lori Katterhenry
The repertory for this concert explores the theme of “Dance and the Human Spirit,” as a commemoration of 9/11. This concert will feature Jose Limon’s elegant and moving masterpiece There Is A Time which originally premiered in 1956. Also spotlighted will be the 2012 offering commissioned by the New Works Initiative, "we love you get up," an original work based on the poetry of Frank O’Hara and the music of Zez Confrey, devised and staged by celebrated New York choreographer Chase Brock. Completing the program will be Tobi Roppo by Sabatino Verlezza, a tribute to the Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb at the close of WWII.
April 11-13 – 7:30 p.m. | April 14 – 8:00 p.m. | April 15 – 2:00 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/Danceworks_2012

Department of Theatre and Dance
PENANCE: The Ghost of Don Juan
Original Script written by Molly Rice
Directed by Debbie Saivetz
Movement by Heather Benton
What happens when overpowering sexuality gets trapped in a body? How does it work its way out? Who falls prey to violence in the pursuit of sexual satisfaction? Who tries to make the pleasure stop? And what price do individuals have to pay for breaking the sexual mold?
Created in collaboration with and performed by the BA Theatre Studies class of 2012, PENANCE uses movement, music, and live games to discover who changes and who does the changing in this hyper-sexual world. This world-premiere exploration/explosion of the Don Juan archetype promises to be a unique evening of live performance.
April 19, 20, 25, 26, 27 – 7:30 p.m. | April 21, 28 – 8:00 p.m. | April 22, 29 – 2:00 p.m.
L. Howard Fox Theatre
peakperfs.org/performances/Penance

John J. Cali School of Music
MSU Symphonic Band and MSU Wind Symphony
Thomas McCauley, conductor
Including music by Rodrigo, Bolcom, Bernstein and Leroy Anderson.
April 20 – 7:00 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/Symphonic_Band_Wind_Symphony

John J. Cali School of Music
Choral Ensembles Spring Concert – Celebrating Africa!
Heather J. Buchanan, conductor
Steven W. Ryan, accompanist
The 60-voice MSU Singers will perform The Making of the Drum (Bob Chilcott), traditional South African folk songs, and African-American spirituals.
The 160-voice MSU Chorale will perform David Fanshawe’s epic “Afro-Latin, tribal-choral masterpiece” African Sanctus with professional guest artist Indra Thomas, soprano, and accompaniment of a piano, percussion, African tape, lead guitar, bass guitar, drum kit, and ethnic drumming troupe.
This unorthodox setting of the Latin Mass integrates authentic traditional African music recorded by the composer on his now legendary journeys up the river Nile through Egypt, Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya. The performance will be a dramatic multi-media production with slide projections of the composer’s photographs coordinated with the musical performance.
The performances also celebrate the composer’s 70th birthday and we are honored to welcome his wife Jane Fanshawe to campus. Ms. Fanshawe will give a free pre-concert talk on African Sanctus in the Leshowitz Recital Hall on Saturday, April 21 beginning at 6:30 p.m.
April 21 – 8:00 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/Choral_Ensembles_Spring

John J. Cali School of Music
MSU Jazz Band I
Jeffrey Kunkel, director
Students in the Cali School jazz program and exciting guest artists perform works from the traditional and contemporary jazz repertoire. This concert features well-known jazz trumpeter, composer, and recording artist, Ingrid Jensen, in a program focusing on contemporary jazz.
April 22 – 3:00 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/MSU_Jazz_Band_April

John J. Cali School of Music
MSU Symphony Orchestra
Ken Lam, director
Director of Orchestra Studies Ken Lam and the MSU Symphony Orchestra will present an evening of modern and classic works, including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), Berlioz’ Hungarian March from The Damnation of Faust, and Sibelius’s Valse Triste, among others.
April 22 – 7:30 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/MSU_Symphony_D

John J. Cali School of Music
MSU Opera Spring Workshop
Jeffrey Gall, director
Ken Lam, conductor
Springtime means comic opera at Montclair State! The MSU Opera Workshop, MSU Symphony, and the Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America team up to present fully staged performances of a comic masterpiece chosen from the rich Italian operatic tradition. Sung in Italian with English supertitles.
Pre-concert talk by Director Jeffrey Gall at 1:30 p.m. on April 29.
April 28 – 8:00 p.m. | April 29 – 3:00 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/Opera_Buffa!

John J. Cali School of Music
An Evening of Chamber Music
This very special evening will feature some of the Cali School’s best student performers with David Singer, principal clarinetist of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Repertoire will include the heroic Richard Strauss Serenade for Winds and a beautiful Schubert octet.
April 30 – 7:30 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/Evening_of_Chamber_Music

Peak Performances
Shanghai Quartet – Bartok Quartets Part I
Ever since Franz Josef Haydn developed the modern version of a string quartet in the mid-18th century, the most daring and innovative practitioners of the art form has to be Béla Bartók. In this special double program, the Shanghai Quartet flexes its musical muscles by performing the complete Bartók quartet cycle. Written over a 30-year span, Bartók’s six quartets stand as a sonic biography of one of the 20th century’s most enigmatic and essential composers.
May 5 – 4:00 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/Bartok_Quartets_1

Shanghai Quartet – Bartok Quartets Part II
Part two of a special double program!
May 5 – 8:00 p.m.
Alexander Kasser Theater
peakperfs.org/performances/Bartok_Quartets_2