Faculty Activities
David Arrivée
David Arrivée has had a very fulfilling 2015. In January, he and Thomas Davies launched Cal Poly’s Bach Week, with concerts and free lectures devoted to the works of J.S. Bach. As part of the week, Arrivée presented a lecture with Davies, conducted a cantata with students and professionals performing side by side, and played harpsichord on Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 2 in B minor.
In March, he traveled to New York City to conduct the choir and baroque orchestra of Trinity Wall Street in a performance of three Bach cantatas. Historic St. Paul’s Chapel was packed with an enthusiastic crowd for that installment of Trinity’s weekly “Bach at One” concert series.
On his return, he rehearsed and conducted two performances of Franz Lehár’s “The Merry Widow” as part of this year’s “co-opera” with Cal Poly’s Student Opera Theatre and Opera San Luis Obispo. Students and professionals again performed side by side on stage and in the pit.
To relax after that rather full school year, Arrivée and his family took a four-month road trip to national parks throughout the West.
Jacalyn Kreitzer
Jacalyn Kreitzer is the vocal consultant for Opera San Luis Obispo and helped with preparation for the Oct. 10-11 performances of an evocative double bill: Pietro Mascagni’s “Cavalleria Rusticana” and Ruggero Leoncavallo’s “Pagliacci,” as part of the organization’s 30-year anniversary season celebration. Starting in January, Kreitzer will teach another session of Care and Repair of the Speaking Voice through Cal Poly’s Extended Education program, helping participants develop strong, clear and confident speaking voices.
Alyson McLamore
Alyson McLamore returned to Cal Poly after a two-quarter sabbatical (January–June 2015). The sabbatical began with the completion of her essay “‘Britannia Rule the Waves’: Maritime Music and National Identity in Eighteenth-Century Britain,” which will appear late this year in the collection “The Sea and the British Musical Imagination,” published by Boydell and Brewer.
Much of McLamore’s sabbatical reflected “conference fever.” At the Western Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (WSECS) meeting, she delivered a paper addressing British maritime music with the kind assistance of vocalist Shaina Levin and pianist W. Terrence Spiller, who performed various 18th-century works. McLamore also chaired “The Gender Lesson: Femininity and Education” session at WSECS. She attended the February meeting of the American Musicological Society’s Pacific Southwest Chapter (PSC) in San Diego; and in March, she delivered a paper titled “‘A Public Character’: Women Concert Organizers in 18th-Century London” during the Los Angeles meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies.
In May, McLamore and professors Spiller and Craig Russell, McLamore co-hosted a joint meeting at Cal Poly of the Northern California and PSC chapters of the American Musicological Association. The conference attracted musicologists from throughout California. She chaired the film music session and served as a judge for the Ingolf Dahl student paper competition.
During this past year, McLamore wrote program notes for the San Luis Obispo Symphony, Cuesta Master Chorale, and Festival Mozaic (including its Wintermezzo series). She also delivered three pre-concert talks for the summer Festival Mozaic concerts. In addition to serving on the program committee for the North American British Music Studies Association and as a textbook reviewer for Pearson Prentice-Hall, she finally had time to participate in the Kappa Kappa Psi-sponsored “Run for Music” in February — and was not the last person to finish!
Christopher Woodruff
Christopher Woodruff was a featured soloist on Antonio Vivaldi’s Concerto for Two Trumpets and Orchestra, presented by Symphony of the Vines, under the baton of Gregory Magie. The concert was held Nov. 1 at Mission San Miguel.
Several Faculty
Several Music Department faculty will be featured in an upcoming performance of Igor Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat, as part of a program that will be the first concert of the newly formed Orchestra Novo, under the direction of Michael Nowak. The concert will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21 at the Temple Beth David in San Luis Obispo. The Stravinsky will include Brynn Albanese, violin; Ken Hustad, bass; John Astaire, percussion; and Christopher Woodruff, cornet.