Dear Friends and Colleagues,
As we embark on a new semester, we’re beginning this new year with intention, charged with energy and with reflection on our relationship with and throughout our community.
Our initial cohort of students selected for our new Arts Administration Fellowships are preparing for a second paid internship placement this summer with arts organizations in the Austin community after spending last summer in paid internships on campus. The program was created last year through a partnership between the college’s Office of Community Engagement and Public Practice and the Center for Creative Economies to support Fine Arts students who are also working toward a Minor in Arts Management and Administration. Applications just opened for the next cohort for summer 2025, and we look forward to connecting a new group of students to the arts on campus and in the Austin community.
This past week, we had two events that engaged the community, one on-campus and another at the Long Center.
The Butler School of Music had a concert so big we took it off campus to a larger venue. The UT Wind Ensemble performed two works by renowned composer John Corigliano, as well as the premiere of a new work by Professor Donald Grantham. Corigliano’s ambitious work Circus Maximus was originally commissioned by the Wind Ensemble in 2004 and features three different bands: one on stage, an antiphonal ensemble in the hall and a marching band. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the work’s premiere, the Wind Ensemble performed this work at the Long Center on Saturday, along with a more recent work by Corigliano that features Saxophone Professor Stephen Page as a soloist playing three different saxophones, one for each movement in the piece. You can learn more about the history of Circus Maximus in this engaging interview with Wind Ensemble conductor Jerry Junkin, and in this interview, Professor Page discusses how he prepared for the challenges of the saxophone concerto in the program.
We’re already planning another concert next April at the Long Center with the UT Symphony Orchestra to get our students in front of new audiences and to give them the opportunity to perform at a world-class concert venue.
This weekend, Texas Performing Arts hosted the world premiere of Postcards From The Border with acclaimed writer and UT Professor Oscar Cásares, UT’s singer-songwriter-in-residence Carrie Rodriguez and photographer Joel Salcido. Cásares and Salcido, who both grew up in Texas near the border, traveled along the length of the Rio Grande River and reported what they saw in a 2019 Texas Monthly article, structured as postcard missives from Cásares to his young daughter. The pair partnered with Rodriguez to translate their work into a live show with music that tells a nuanced portrait of life along the border. You can read more about the project in this feature story from NPR.
We have more exciting community-engaged projects coming this spring, and we look forward to seeing you in our theatres and galleries as we move into our busiest time of the year with incredible performances and student showcases on the horizon.
Sincerely,
