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Cover of The Green Room magazine, May 2017

In The Green Room: May 2017

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May 2017 cover of The Green Room | Organ + Trumpet a classic combination

The May 2017 issue of The Green Room.

As the 2016-2017 academic year comes to a close at Colorado State University, we simultaneously wrap multiple performing and visual arts productions and exhibitions at the University Center for the Arts, recognize deserving students and faculty at a plethora of year-end awards events across campus, and conclude it all with the big deal of ceremonies – graduation!

I’ll spare you any words of wisdom or anecdotes about graduating, leaving that task to the true experts whose commencement day prose will be perfect! However, I recently read a letter my husband wrote to his son on the occasion of his son’s graduation. These words are not only applicable to students leaving university life, but to all of us who walk out the front door each morning, embarking on life’s daily duties and opportunities.

In order to keep this letter to one page, I have had to dispense with the notion that I can fill it with all of the advice and cautions I can muster (which are numerous, as you know). I will simply leave you with two words that I contend serve all of us well regardless of life situation, political or religious affiliation, sexual orientation, etc:

Be good. Every day. Every way. To everyone. To yourself. Follow that advice and everything else will come out in the wash.

There’s a lot there. Read it again.

It’s been quite a year, but as we exit the 2016- 2017 season, I can recall many truly good aspects, not just the creativity, talent, commitment, and development, but the insightful and tender way our students take care of each other. It’s a refreshing display of altruism in these somewhat turbulent times. I like to think that the community we have created inside these walls will continue to nourish each other and serve as an example for the thousands of guests we welcome into our “home” here at the UCA every year.

Keep it up, and may this summer be good to you! Read the May 2017 issue of The Green Room.

Jennifer Clary Jacobs
Marketing Director, University Center for the Arts

Crab Apple Blossom

In The Green Room: April 2017

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The Green Room April 2017 Vol. 3 Iss. 18 April 2017 | Powerful, Collaborative Expression Spring Dance Concert Preview

April 2017: The Green Room

It’s The Green Room’s anniversary! Our creatively crafted and responsibly delivered online showcase of all things performing and visual arts at Colorado State University is now two years old. As you continue to engage with the arts at CSU, we hope our free, story-telling solution continues to be a part of the mix.

April is an exquisite time of year with the lovely crab apple trees in full bloom. Fort Collins has a special affinity for the varied-colored trees, with their heavy clusters of blossoms. Laden with meaning, the blooms were considered a symbol of artistic creativity by the Celts. Perhaps with the trees encircling the UCA as a contributing factor, April is the culminating month for events each academic year, and 2017 doesn’t disappoint! This month’s highlight events include the Spring Dance Concert, the opening of Little Shop of Horrors, The Musical, and two nights of the University Symphony Orchestra.

As you read the pages of our second anniversary issue, we hope you find an event that feels tailored to your tastes, and that we see you at the UCA soon. Altogether, it is an ideal time to visit campus!

If you’ve enjoyed this publication, please share it, send us your own story ideas and news. We thank you for your ongoing readership and support!

Cheers,
Jennifer Clary Jacobs
Marketing Director, University Center for the Arts

February 2017 Green Room cover

In The Green Room: February 2017

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February 2017 Green Room cover | Shostakovich ReturnsIt’s been a little bit since we last visited with you in The Green Room. We truly hope your holidays were pleasant and that 2017 is going well already. At the University Center for the Arts, Jan. set a fast pace for the spring semester, even before the students arrived back on campus.

In the last three weeks, there have been five guest artist and faculty recitals, a Classical Convergence Concert, three art exhibition openings with a reception, theatre production and music ensemble auditions, three master classes, a creative writing book reading, dance visit/audition day, and the start of the 11-week Middle School Outreach Ensembles program. We hosted a delegation of music students and faculty from China, including two full-scale concerts, and we took our show on the road to Colorado Springs for the annual Colorado Music Educators Association Clinic-Conference where a dozen of our music faculty presented sessions, Jazz Ensemble I played a concert, and we welcomed over 150 alumni and friends at a reception. Incredible!

We’re particularly thrilled to note the success of our dance visit and audition day, where over two dozen aspiring dance majors took master classes with CSU faculty and watched a performance by current CSU dance majors. Equally inspiring were master classes with several world-renowned guests including The Canadian Brass, trombonist Joe Alessi, and the acapella group Cantus. As we strive to create a diverse and collaborative artistic community, input from young dreamers and sage professionals alike is salve for our souls and fuels our motivation.

And that was just January!

Take care,
Jennifer Clary Jacobs
Director of Marketing, University Center for the Arts

The Green Room is the University Center for the Arts’ online magazine. Click here to check it out and “follow” us today!

Angela Myles Beeching giving a lecture

Preparing for your Music Career in the New Year

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Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that your holiday break was one of rest and good company. Classes are now underway, and it will be another busy semester of teaching, concerts, and auditions.

So much is written about resolutions for the new year, but we all know that sticking to them is a challenge.There was an excellent blog posting on Angela Myles Beeching’s website (she is pictured above) that has a great way to plan for 2017 by focusing on your accomplishments from last year, and how to better plan for this year. I went through all the items, and I discovered that I accomplished quite a bit in 2016. Check out her site, “The Professional Musician’s Roadmap,” and sign up for her weekly postings!

This semester there will be a shift in focus for this blog, along the lines of what Ms. Beeching does. Whether you are a high school student, undergraduate, graduate student, or professional, as musicians we always need to be looking ahead to what we would like our lives to be. Very few careers are a straight line, and a music career is no exception. It’s never too early to begin to plan for your musical life once you are a professional, so why not take half an hour to sit with a cup of coffee, tea or water, and write down how you see yourself as a professional musician. I’ll tell you my story in the next posting.

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or comments.

Until next time,
Margaret Miller

2016 December Green Room cover

In The Green Room: Wow, I’ve Got Nothing…

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2016 December Green Room coverThe Green Room is the University Center for the Arts’ online magazine. 

December 2016: As I put keyboard to paper this month, my first thought is “Wow, I’ve got nothing…”

As I stare at this practically blank page, I realize that this way of thinking is not only inaccurate, but diminishes the value of a whole lot of time and effort, both mine, and everyone else at the University Center for the Arts.

This semester, I’ve watched the comings and goings of over a 1000 students who spend a portion or most of their day at the UCA each week; I hear a satisfying cacophony holistically emitting from 50 practice rooms at the south end of the building, no matter the time of day; I smell wood being cut in the scene shop as that delicious scent wafts down the hall; I hear the crunch of the ice machine as a dancer fills an ice pack the end of a grueling rehearsal; I see Poudre School District buses pull up in front and little kids holding hands as they wind their way into the museum; and I hear the rhythmic chug of our large color printer churning out programs and posters for hours at a time.

I could go on and on…and easily fill ten pages, but that’s simply a glimpse into a few elements comprising the learning and creative process that took place at the UCA during the 2016 fall semester, and all the semesters before that. And it’s precisely the ten pages’ worth of activities, events, tasks, and exercises that initially left me with nothing to say.

Don’t we all do this though? Pour everything into our art, or whatever else we are dedicated to, until we are depleted and imagine that we have nothing left. But in truth, we have everything, it’s all around us, reflected in our satisfaction with a performance or research project, the photos, and videos taken at events, and in the memories our immense efforts created.

This issue of The Green Room shares some of those captured moments and foretells of projects that will be memories soon. After that, the UCA will pause and rejuvenate until classes resume later in Jan. Until then, we wish you Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Take care,
Jennifer Clary Jacobs
Director of Marketing, University Center for the Arts

Tick tock, tick tock…

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I am annually amazed at how quickly Nov. arrives; I look back at my post from Aug., when the year was just underway and the Thanksgiving break seemed a long way off. And now it’s here, which means that there are three weeks of classes before juries. As I recently told my studio, it’s time to find your extra gear.

I am finding my extra gear, as well. For me, there is one more concert for the semester tonight, a chamber music concert with my faculty colleagues. I very much enjoy these programs and working with my fellow musicians. No doubt you all have concerts before the end of the semester, and so I encourage you to enjoy those events, enjoy the work that you have done this semester, enjoy performing with your colleagues. These are relationships that can last a life time.

But also enjoy the down time during the Thanksgiving break. You have all worked very hard, and that does not go unnoticed. Refuel, rejuvenate, and power through.

Until next time,
Margaret Miller
Assistant Professor of Viola

stack of old sheet music pictured

On to the next event…

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Hello, everyone! I’m sure for many of you it is mid-terms, and the accompanying stress that goes with it. Sleep is your friend right now, remember that!

I am a week off in my postings as I had my recital last Monday. It went pretty well, and I am always grateful for the friends and former students who attend. I had the opportunity to play most of the program at Chadron State College in Neb. a few weeks earlier, and it makes such a difference to have more than one performance of a program. So, if you have a recital later this semester, look for other performance opportunities off campus. You will gain a great deal with the extra performing.

So, as the title of today’s blog suggests, it is time to move on to the next stack of music! I am playing the Haydn Creation with ProMusica Colorado in a few weeks, so there is quite a bit of music there to get in my fingers, plus a faculty chamber music concert in mid-Nov. Never a dull moment!

Until next time,
Margaret Miller
Professor of Viola