On Thursday evening, April 9, Dean Robert Shay held a town hall meeting for students to hear more about the College of Music's upcoming strategic plan, ask questions and provide their feedback.
The students were invited to perform as part of the Monterey Jazz Festival鈥檚 prestigious Next Generation Jazz Festival, which annually brings more than a thousand middle-school, high-school and college big bands, combos and ensembles to 鈥渄uke it out for the glory of performing at the Monterey Jazz Festival in September,鈥� according to the festival鈥檚 website.
Even in its most intimate and reserved moments, Mozart's Cos矛 fan tutte is by turns intense and hysterical. Its intricate plot, which might have become convoluted in lesser hands than those of Mozart and his librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, moves forward with such swiftness that at times the observer is left breathless.
Natalie Merchant is used to it by now鈥攖he startled gasp from the audience when she emerges on stage. The reaction says more about our celebrity-crazed culture than it does about Merchant, embraced by fans in the 1980s as the hip vocalist and literate lyricist/songwriter for the alt-folk-rock band 10,000 Maniacs.
Born in Havana, Cuba, the versatile D'Rivera鈥攆lute, saxophone, clarinet鈥攑erformed with the National Theater Orchestra at age 10. He studied at the Havana Conservatory of Music and became a featured soloist with the Cuban National Symphony at age 17.
Under bright stage lights, before an audience of empty chairs, Eli Stalzer runs his fingers across the keys of a large, black piano. He鈥檚 come for an interview, not a rehearsal, but he can鈥檛 help himself: He鈥檚 been a piano player since age eight.
