Jan. 15 2004

Contact: Jo Ann Lloyd
(805) 756-1511

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cal Poly Music Ensembles To Perform Benefit Chamber Concert at Mission Feb. 8

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- Eight of Cal Poly's finest student ensembles will give a chamber music concert at 8 p.m. Feb. 8 in the Old Mission Church in San Luis Obispo. The event is a benefit to raise money for concert tours for three university music groups.

The University Jazz Band No. 1 has a concert tour scheduled in China, Cal Poly Vocal Jazz plans to perform in New York’s Carnegie Hall, and PolyPhonics will travel to Las Vegas to perform at the American Choral Directors Association conference.

To help them get there, the Cal Poly String Trio, PolyPhonics, the Trombone Choir, Chamber Winds, Saxophone Quartet, Clarinet Ensemble, Euphonium Quartet and Brass Choir will present “A Night at the Mission.”

PolyPhonics, a 40-voice choral ensemble led by Music Professor Thomas Davies, will begin the program with several selections “designed to fill the Old Mission Church with rich opening sounds,” according to Music Professor William Johnson.

The Cal Poly String Trio, under the direction of Music Professor Clifton Swanson, will perform three movements from the “Serenade” by Emo Van Dohnanyi.

Johnson will conduct the Chamber Winds in Franz Schubert’s “Overture in Italian Style in C,” transcribed for double wind quintet by Vern Reynolds.

Music faculty member Roy Main, director of the Cal Poly Trombone Choir, will lead the ensemble of 16 trombone players in several traditional and contemporary works, and the Saxophone Quartet, led by Music Department faculty member Robert Caron, will perform several works for saxophone quartet.
The Cal Poly Clarinet Ensemble, under the direction of Music Department faculty member Caroline Tobin, will perform the “Andante” from Symphony No. 4 by Felix Mendelssohn.

Music senior Jordan Ray will lead the newly formed Euphonium Quartet in several works, and the concert will close with the powerful sounds of Cal Poly’s Brass Choir under the direction of faculty member Keith Snell.

“We still need funding to help Cal Poly’s University Jazz Band No. 1 become international ambassadors of jazz,” said Paul Rinzler, director of jazz studies at Cal Poly.

The June trip to China -- the first international tour for a Cal Poly jazz band -- would include a series of concerts in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

“In Beijing, the group will perform at the Now nightclub in the famous ‘798’ building in a Soho-style district of contemporary art, architecture and loft culture,” Rinzler said. “In Shanghai, the band will perform at the La Maison club in the trendy Xin Tian Di area. Also included will be joint performances with college ensembles in Hangzhou and with the Beijing Contemporary Music Institute, China’s answer to the Berklee School of Music in Boston, one of the great jazz schools in the United States.

“Many people in China are very curious about jazz and things American,” Rinzler said. “These performances give the Cal Poly Jazz Band the chance to inspire a new and eager audience for jazz on the international scene.”

Funds are also needed to send two of Cal Poly’s choral ensembles to prestigious events, Johnson said. PolyPhonics has been invited to perform a concert at the 2004 Western Division Convention of the American Choral Directors Association in Las Vegas Feb. 24-26. One of only two university choirs selected, PolyPhonics was chosen from more than 100 submitted audition tapes.

The invitation letter sent by the Western division president of the American Choral Directors Association called PolyPhonics’ work “truly outstanding and representative of the high standards of performance required of all groups invited to perform at an ACDA convention.”

Cal Poly Vocal Jazz has been invited to New York City to participate in the Phil Matson Jazz Workshop in Carnegie Hall.

“The group received an invitation from Phil Matson, one of our nation’s leading jazz musicians and educators,” Johnson said. “The ensemble will not only perform on stage at Carnegie Hall but will attend workshops led by Matson and his terrific staff of jazz educators.”

Tickets to the Feb. 8 “A Night at the Mission” benefit concert are $8 to $10 and can be bought at the Performing Arts Ticket Office 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m.-noon Saturday. To order tickets, call 756-2787 (756-ARTS). Tickets will also be available at the door.

For more information on the concert or becoming a donor, contact the Cal Poly Music Department at 756-2607 or www.music.calpoly.edu/.

- # # # -